“The Battle of the Bands”—The Turtles (Jerry Douglas and Harry Nilsson)
“Hero Takes a Fall”—The Bangles (Susanna Hoffs and Vicki Peterson)
“Shaman’s Blues”—The Doors (Jim Morrison)
“Time Has Come Today”—The Chambers Brothers (Joseph Chambers and Willie Chambers)
“Everything and More”—Dolly Mixture (Rachel Bor, Hester Smith, and Debsey Wykes)
“My Best Friend”—Jefferson Airplane (Skip Spence)
LINER NOTES FOR THE DAILY TELEGRAPH’S DEL CYD
When people speak of “the Paisley Underground” they are usually referring to a handful of talented groups that helped reignite the spirit of the 1960s in a fresh punk and post-punk context: Salvation Army/Three O’Clock, Green on Red, the Long Ryders, Dream Syndicate, Rain Parade, the Last, the Unclaimed, and a handful of others. These bands left their mark, and they rightfully own the territory.
However the term itself is somewhat misleading because the Paisley Underground didn’t happen in a vacuum.
There was a citywide spirit of reclamation and rediscovery in those years that stretched beyond any one scene. It was as if everybody who loved music willfully stepped into a time machine to embark on a wild journey, touching ground in every past era of rock and roll, just to see what we could gather and preserve…what we could use.
A full-scale rockabilly and roots revival was in swing with Levi and the Rockats, the Blasters, Top Jimmy and the Rhythm Pigs, Los Lobos, and the reappearance of old-timers like Italianborn Rockin’ Ronny Weiser making the scene. The brilliantine was flowing, along with the taffeta and the unfiltered cigarettes.
Then you had the Gun Club fuel-injecting the blues in double-time and bringing Robert Johnson and John Coltrane to a whole new generation of hyped-up kids. The Mosrite surf guitar was also having something of a rebirth in those years, with the Cramps hitting their stride on Psychedelic Jungle and the Unknowns delivering their sublime one-of-a-kind surfabilly pop. When the Ventures appeared at Disneyland, rock and rollers from every corner of town descended on the park.
Then there were the devoted American mod/ska kids cruising to the On Klub or the Bullet in their fleet of Lambrettas and Vespas to see the Question, the Untouchables, early Fishbone, and others, decked out in parkas and buttons galore.
Then you had a slew of beatnik experimenters that were equally entrenched in the past, but perhaps wedded to no specific time—Phast Phreddie & Thee Precisions, the Romans, the Tikis, and others too countless to number.
Just what sparked this deep spirit of revival—which stretched not only coast to coast but US to UK to Australia and beyond—is anybody’s guess and would probably require a degree in chaos theory to prove out. But the point is that the past was everywhere, from the clubs to the magazines to the used clothing shops along Melrose, spreading an infectious spirit right down to the high schools.
And that brings us to the Daily Telegraph.
You didn’t read about them in Bomp! or New York Rocker, but you should have. One talentless Music Connection hack had the unmitigated gall to call the band, “another fish in the fish-eyed-lensed procession of current L.A. groups fetishizing the ‹60s.” Well, rumor has it said writer (who shall remain nameless) is currently holding down a twenty-year-plus job in medical billing data entry, but that’s another story. The fact is that they were not just another group—they were that rare but almost mystical thing: kids with a vision.
My husband Lazar first discovered “the ’Graph” when he went to see his friend Bill “Balloon Man” Morrison performing his special brand of philosophical comedy at the Natural Fudge. Lazar came home that night in a state of high ecstasy, not chemically induced, insisting that he had “seen the future of rock and roll.” The very next day, their go-getter muse and de facto manager Cinnamon Persky called to invite us to see them perform—where else?—in somebody’s parents’ garage.
They were messy, they were green, they were half-shy, halfgrandiose, and, at times, they were out of tune and nearly unlistenable—and yet, these five high school boys were totally invested in the original spirit of rock ‘n’ roll like nobody we’d ever seen. What they lacked in skills they more than made up for with drive and passion, each member bringing the force of his unformed but special personality to the table.
Drummer Rey-Rey was a kind of muscle-bound mini-man with a boyish heart of gold and he hit those things hard. It really stood out. Bassist Jeff “Groony” Grunes was an angel disguised as a porcupine, as methodical as Rey was wild. Keyboardist Devon was the daydreamer—every band needs one. Sometimes, mid-song, you could see him slip into a kind of trance, lost in song. Guitarist Emil was the heartthrob, fleet-footed, winking, but totally consumed by his axe. And lead singer Mickey Sandoz was a true shapeshifter, a trickster fox, a joker who lived to turn the room upside-down.
We knew they weren’t ready, but we could not walk away. And so Cinnamon took it upon herself to work them tirelessly in the garage with Lazar at the helm, trimming songs, tightening up, epic rehearsals for whole weekends at a stretch. Like magic, the band tightened up, the music congealed, and inside a season, we were ready to roll tape.
That tape is just what you have in your hands—pure music, revealing the magic of time.
Across these miraculous tracks are the fruits of their labor—young people throwing themselves into psychedelic rock and roll with complete and total abandon, and discovering a space that is beyond the beyond.
Let’s skip the details about what happened next. Suffice it to say that tragedy befell the group before they could come out from their own underground, and the record was subsequently shelved—a very real and personal heartbreak for many, my husband and I included.
The most bitter part, perhaps, is that their music could never be listened to again without this backdrop of pain. How a piece of magic so heartfelt and so innocent could get buried before it even got a chance to live? For many years, in darkest times, my husband and I would hold our single cassette of these songs up to the light and wonder if we lived in a just universe.
Well…it turns out that we do.
And the Daily Telegraph lives.
Marie Lawrence, Co-Founder, Pioneer Records Inglewood, California
2024
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First I would like to offer gratitude for the beloved memories of my father Shalom and my brother Moshe. Their spirits guide me every step of the way.
For believing in the continued adventures of Adam Zantz, my sincere gratitude goes to double-amazing agents Janet Oshiro and David Halpern at the Robbins Office, and to super-editor Carl Bromley at Melville House. Me and Zantz are lucky mugs.
Also very special thanks to the Duke of Earl, aka Michael Barson, for his savvy guidance, impeccable taste, black belt wisecracks, and unspeakable coolness.
And big love to Dennis Loy Johnson, Valerie Merians, and the supreme dream team at Melville House—Janet Joy Wilson, Ariel Palmer-Collins, Madeleine Letellier, Sammi Sontag, Pia Mulleady, Susan McGrath, Justin DeCarlo, Amber Qureshi, Michelle Capone, Mike Lindgren, Sofia Demopolos, and especially cover designer Beste Miray Doğan. And thanks to Kathy Robbins, Lucinda Halpern, Rishon Blumberg, and Michael Solomon for setting me on the path.
Thanks to H. W. Taeusch, Barbara White, Doug Magnuson, Troy Lambert, and my ninety-four-year-old mother Rama for their determined reads and brilliant editorial input.
Extra special thanks to Neil Normal of GNP Crescendo Records for the Seeds lyrics. Be sure to check out the mind-blow documentary Pushing Too Hard on Vimeo.
Once again, I’d like to thank the literary mentors and guides who showed me the way: Harvey Kubernik, Al, and Hud from Flipside; the late great Craig Lee; Gene Sculatti and Ronn Spencer; Daniel Shulman and Josh Schreiber; Jack Skelley; Steve Abee; Francesca Lia Block; Robin Carr; Amy White; Scott Sampler; Erik Himmelsbach-Weinstein; Lisa Rojany and late greats Larry Sloan and Leonard Stern; Rhonda Lieberman; Laura Nolan; Joan Leegant, Risa Miller, Allen Hoffman, the Shaindy Rudoff Creative Writing Program and Ilanot Review; Jill Schary Robinson and the Wimpole Street Writers; Ari Haddad, Jon Shapiro, Pablo Capra, and Kenneth Kubernik. And gratitude for the memories I hold dear—Ethel Rudbarg, Morris Rudbarg, Dave “Id” Hahn, Aviva Blumberg, Raina Nichelson, Bill Morrison, Natalie Werbner, Davin Seay, Roy Silver, Alan Grannell, Rita Davis, and Lenorah Hahn.
Finally, and most of all, love and gratitude to my wife Clover and son Max—my Skee-Ball players on the Santa Monica Pier.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Daniel Weizmann is a writer and editor whose work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Billboard, the Guardian, AP Newswire, and more. Under the nom de plume Shredder, Weizmann also wrote for the long running Flipside fanzine, as well as LA Weekly, which once called him “an incomparable punk stylist.” He lives in Los Angeles, California.
