Courtesy of Mikel Toombs, here’s a joint artifact of two hugely influential forces in San Diego music: an interview of the Unknowns that Dan McLain conducted for Issue III of his Hobogue ‘zine, dated February 1982.
“I interviewed the Unknowns 2 years ago for Snare magazine,” McLain writes. “In retrospect, I found our previous outing so incomplete that I simply had to do it over again.
Read more about Snare and other SD ‘zines!
“This is actually an interview with (vocalist) Bruce Joyner, since (bassist) Dave (Doyle), (guitarist) Mark (Neill) and (drummer) Steve (Bidrowski) all split when ‘Happy Days’ came on.”
All the pages are saved as JPEG images (at high enough resolution that these aging eyes can read ’em, anyway). Pipe up if it’s unintelligible!
More on the Unknowns:
- Bruce Joyner: Che Underground regards
- The Unknowns’ lost documentary!
- Dream Sequence: The history of the Unknowns
As a New Jersey resident now, I like this part of the interview:
Bruce: … (W)e were playing with our first rhythm section, which moved back to New Jersey ’cause they couldn’t make it in the real world.
‘Bogue: So they moved to New Jersey.
Bruce: Which is about as far from the real world as a person can get. It’s a real dump.
‘Bogue: Did you play there?
Bruce: We did, and the reaction we got was akin to someone dropping a dead cat in a room full of bulldogs. It was like all of ’em was jumpin’ around lookin’ for something to bite, but the animal was already dead. (much chuckles)
‘Bogue: Sounds like a real fun show.
Bruce: We did OK. We convinced ’em they should have Black Flag play there. (more laughter) We were treated pretty dorky. These people were tryin’ to be New Wave or punk but to me you’re not New Wave if you’ve got pigtails to your waist and you’re wearing pink glasses with feathers in your hair and you’re a guy. I really don’t know what you are if you’re like that, a space invader or something.
By total coincidence, a younger colleague just sent me a link to the “Chuck Cunningham Syndrome,” yet another phrase inspired by the Unknowns’ beloved “Happy Days.”
“The first two seasons of the series also featured Chuck, the Cunninghams’ eldest child and Richie’s older brother. … After Fonzie attained breakout success and was repurposed to be more sympathetic and closer to Richie, the Chuck character was nearly superfluous, and his scenes were usually brief appearances “on his way to basketball practice.” …
“Chuck was written out during the series’ second season with no explanation and was rarely referred to again. … The unexplained removal of a character in a TV series has come to be known as ‘Chuck Cunningham Syndrome.’ ”
(Cliff Cunningham may be either gratified or horrified to hear that my mention of his name was the proximate cause of this cascade of “Happy Days” trivia.)
In the final episode, Chuck wasn’t even there and Mr. C. referred to his “two children.” I liked Chuck, missed him when he was gone. He was part of it being a 50’s show. (Also the Cs’ apartment in the pilot.) Fonz was way better when he didn’t talk much.
You know, with enough forensics, we can probably figure out which episode of “Happy Days” the Unknowns were watching. This would have been the post-Richie Cunningham era …
And given the show’s longstanding time slot, we know that Dan commenced his interview of the band on a Tuesday at approximately 7:45 p.m. PST.
Speaking of timelines: Can somebody tell me about the origin and duration of the Dan McLain-backed boycott of the Spirit Club? I’ve seen it mentioned in various ‘zines from the era, and I thought it was about 1982 … But in this Hobogue interview, he seems laudatory about the Unknowns’ recent Spirit gig. Is there a story behind this?
I can’t say enough about Bruce’s sense of humor. He and Dan make a great comedy team. Bruce, by the way, is a master storyteller, in the tradition of the great Southern writers.
I had stopped watching television by ’82. I had no idea Happy Days was still on! Talk about jumping the shark! I was unaware they kept going after Ron Howard left the show. There’s an adage somewhere about flogging a dead cash cow . . .
Fun fact, via Wikipedia: in Korea, “chachi” is slang for penis.
>>in Korea, “chachi” is slang for penis.
That means Joanie loves … Oh. OH!
Urban legend, sad to say: http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/tv/joanie.asp
Back in junior high, Joanie always impressed me as someone with an appreciation for chachi. I found it an appealing quality when I was 12.
I forgot about Bruce’s sardonic wit…God its great to read this.
I had forgotten all about this interview, hell I can’t remember where it was taken, not in Golden Hills because we were outta there after the tour. What a hoot!
Gary, Bruce still possesses that wit. He’ll get you laughing without much effort on his part.
And yes Matt NJ at the time left something to be desired, the gig Bruce speaks of was in Passiac at someplace called ‘Hitsville’ opening act was L4. It was an old funeral home and the gig was the day before Halloween…
I recall eating at someplace in Bellvue maybe that had lotsa potential because it was such a cool old diner, but man the food was awful. But in defense of NJ, Philly was worse in comparison.
Oh! Here’s the original Unknowns interview Dan references in the intro to the one posted here.