(Excerpts from Tell-Tale Heart/Town Crier Ray Brandes’ account of San Diego’s punk originators. Read the full version in Che Underground’s Related Bands section.)
Javier Escovedo: vocals, guitar
Hector Penalosa: bass, vocals
Robert Lopez: guitar, vocals
Baba Chenelle: drums
The Zeros, often referred to affectionately as the “Mexican Ramones,” cannot only justifiably lay claim to being San Diego’s first “punk” rock group but also can brag about being one of the first punk groups in the United States.
In a brief but brilliant career highlighted by some classic recordings as well as shows with the Clash and Devo, the Zeros played the first big punk shows in both Los Angeles and in San Diego as early as 1977, when they were still high-school students. It is a testament to the drive and spirit of these pointy-toed revolutionaries that such a group was able to spring from the sleepy suburbs of National City and Chula Vista at a time when greater San Diego was both indifferent to and unimpressed by counterculture movements of any kind.
To say that Zeros guitarist and lead vocalist Javier Escovedo hails from a musical family would be to make a grand understatement. His parents immigrated to Texas from Mexico in the 1930s. His father, who played in mariachi bands, passed his passion for music on to every one of his 13 children. Javier’s older brothers, Pete and Thomas “Coke” Escovedo, played with both Santana and Malo (who had the hit “Suavecito,” sometimes called “The Chicano National Anthem”), and niece Sheila E. played with Prince and had hits with “The Glamorous Life” and “A Love Bizarre” in the 1980s. His brother Alejandro founded San Francisco punk band the Nuns, whose pinnacle was opening for the Sex Pistols in their legendary final concert in 1978 at the Winterland, and had further success in Rank and File, the True Believers and as a solo artist. Alejandro, closest in age to Javier, was the family member with the most influence upon his musical tastes.
Zeros guitarist Robert Lopez and his cousin, Zeros drummer Baba Chenelle (Robert’s dad is the brother of Baba’s mom) grew up together listening to music and learning to play the guitar and drums, respectively. Robert’s two older sisters, Rhoda and Shane, kept him up to date with the latest music, and Robert shared their tastes with Baba.
Hector’s musical journey also began an early age. “When I was five and living in San Pedro, I used to watch Beatles cartoons. I kind of forgot about them, but they were in my subconscious. Years later, when I was 13 and living in Tijuana, I used to ride the bus home from school and listen to a program on the radio that played an hour of Beatles music each day. I started playing guitar after that.” Hector, who is left-handed, picked up a right-handed guitar and taught himself to play it upside-down, without reversing the strings.
Baba and Hector met in PE class at Chula Vista Junior High School on April 4, 1975, the Monday after KISS made its first appearance on Burt Sugarman’s “Midnight Special.”
“I told this kid I had seen this band on TV with a bunch of makeup and platforms,” Hector remembers. “Baba said, ‘Yeah, man, they’re cool. I have three of their records, so I’ll bring ‘em tomorrow, and you can check ‘em out.’ Baba turned me on to a lot of cool music like Aerosmith, the Modern Lovers and the Velvets, and we became friends,” says Hector.
Locked in the garage at Baba’s parents’ house in National City every weekend, the two new friends played guitar and drums for hours at a time throughout the entire summer before they entered Sweetwater High School. Towards the end of that summer, Baba and Hector cooked up a plan to show up at a Chula Vista park, set up amplifiers and drums, and start playing. “We grabbed a shopping cart from a store down the street; loaded it up with drums, guitars and amplifiers; and wheeled it six blocks to the park,” remembers Hector. “When we got there, a few other friends showed up, so we had three wannabe Jimmy Pages and a drummer.” It was at this point Hector decided to switch to bass so that he could eliminate his competition. He began teaching himself to play bass using three albums as guides: “The New York Dolls”; the Dolls’ “Too Much, Too Soon”; and John Lennon’s “Rock and Roll.”
During this time, Javier and Robert, who were students at Chula Vista High School, were playing in a band called the Main Street Brats, covering Standells, Seeds, and Velvet Underground songs, alongside Javier’s originals like “Main Street Brat,” “Siamese Tease,” “Wimp” and “Don’t Push Me Around.” They recruited Baba to be the group’s drummer, and later that year, when they needed a bass player, Hector was invited to audition at Javier’s house in Chula Vista.
“I didn’t hear from them for a long time afterwards,” Hector remembers. “I finally asked Baba about it, and he told me that they weren’t sure because they thought if I joined there would be too many Mexicans in the band! They were looking for a blonde guy.” After a string of disastrous auditions, Baba was finally able to talk the rest of the band into hiring Hector. “Out of the blue, Baba suddenly called me and said they had a gig and that they wanted me to play,” says Hector.
The Zeros perform “Main Street Brat,” one of Javier Escovedo’s first compositions: Listen now!
The band had now become the Zeros, a nod to a line by Lester Bangs Javier had read in Creem magazine: “I don’t wanna be a hero, I just wanna be a zero.” The newly named Zeros’ first gig made for a very unimpressive debut: a quinceanera in Rosarito, Mexico, for someone in Javier’s family. The band drove to Rosarito to find that the family had already hired a Tijuana cover band, which was in the process of setting up giant, door-sized Peavey amplifiers and a drum kit with about 10 mounted tom-toms. They were told they could play a few songs on the group’s equipment, but Hector remembers that “you could feel the tension in the air. We got there and people thought we were from outer space because we were wearing tight pants, pointy shoes, ‘60s coats and skinny ties.” The band played only five songs: a couple of Javier’s originals, the Velvet Underground’s “Waiting for the Man,” and hyper-fast versions of the Chantays’ Pipeline and the Shirelles’ “Boys.” The audience response was enough to encourage the band to continue.
While the band’s early repertoire reflected their love of ‘60s groups like the Beatles, the Animals, the Standells and the Seeds, as well as ‘70s groups like KISS and the New York Dolls, it is important to note that they were both fans of and contemporaries of many bands who have been credited with the invention of punk rock in the mid-‘70s. According to Hector, “The New York scene was the big gauge to compare ourselves with. We were always waiting for the magazine ‘Rock Scene’ to come out at the newsstand on Third Avenue in Chula Vista because that was our Bible.” Up-and-coming new bands who would appear in the magazine before they became famous were featured next to photographs of Lou Reed, Iggy Pop and David Bowie on stage, back stage and at after-parties. “We listened to and were influenced by a lot of those bands,” says Hector.
When word failed to spread after the Rosarito quinceanera gig, the band holed itself up in a practice studio on E Street in Chula Vista. For nearly a year, the band did not play at all in San Diego. According to Javier, “We all agreed to devote more time and energy to the music. At that time, our kind of music was just not heard or played in San Diego, so we set our sights on Los Angeles.”
Watch the Zeros perform “Don’t Push Me Around” and “Wimp” on “Sun Up San Diego” with host Clark Anthony in 1977: