(Jim Ryan of the Cardiac Kidz adds important pieces to the mosaic of the late-’70s San Diego underground.)
The Lions club photo is from the June 1979 show with DFX2 and the Dinettes.
Like the flyer notes, this was the debut of the Dinettes. Doriot was putting a new version of the Cockpits together but decided to go with a whole new name scenario, which expanded the styles of music they would play at their gigs.
The Backdoor flyer is from the Cardiac Kidz’s first show. (Cardiac Kidz bassist Steve Lightfoot was instrumental in setting this gig up.) So yes, the Cockpits were on the scene before the Cardiac Kidz. (I had dated Jolien from the Cockpits for a short time but we broke up before the Cockpits did.)
When Doriot was ready to re-emerge onto the scene with her group, she had some trouble getting a starting gig; the current bands already playing weren’t to open to them. I was a big supporter of an all-girl punk band band and even though the group hand a “New Wave” take on classic rock-‘n’-roll tunes, their originals were great stuff.
The Dinettes were like us in the sense that it was hard to define just what genre they were playing.
The Cardiac Kidz’s main contribution to the punk rock underground was the development of a “core” band-defined music scene, not a scene stifled by club owners and “I’m A Rock Star” bands.
Local bands like the Standbys, the Dinettes, Xterminators, DFX2 and others (who didn’t fare as well), created venues like the Spirit and the Roxy Theater; these were the kind of venues that the Cardiac Kidz “attacked” to convert into punk/New Wave showcases.
This concept actually came from Dan (McLain) himself. One day (as usual), I was hanging out at his record store (Monty Rockers, a great place be those days to get those new and unusual LPs, 45s and connect with like-minded people) when were both bitching about how you had to kiss up to club owners just to play and we should stand on our own feet and grab the music scene by the balls and ripped them right off.
More from Jim Ryan: Dan McLain’s San Diego band family tree!
The key to a successful music scene was indeed Band Unity. Oh, rivals were great to have — it juiced up the scene. We had our fans and the Penetrators had theirs, both willing to go to bat for their favorite band. But even the Penetrators played a couple of gigs with us (Montezuma Hall and the Spirit — they headlined). As Gary would tell you, he and I had no malice toward each other at all. Our fans clashed a lot in the media outlets, though. The Penetrators were just better at what they did then we were, and hey — they were good!
There is more to our particular story, like how we purposely released a 45 with one side hard-core punk (“Get Out”) and the other New Wave to test San Diego’s culture so that we as a band would not be defeated before we even tried.
San Diego greeted us as New Wave with “Find Yourself Away” as the song played on the radio and the song that got us on the “Sun Up” TV show. So we were cursed to play in both worlds of New Wave and fulfill our desire to play punk rock. Our shows had a blend of punk/Wave songs (I always hated the labels), which made it hard to define just what we were.
If you listen to the LP “Get Out” released from Rave-Up Records, you’ll get a feel for us: a little bit of everything …
The key for us was to maintain what punk rock was about in UK: Anybody, big or small, in a band or part of the culture, was worthy of “star” status and should be treated as such. We involved the crowds in our shows because they were the show, not us. If you didn’t like what we wore piss off; if you didn’t like our music, piss off; and if you didn’t like how behind the scene we manipulated the “music scene,” piss off. We wanted to “kill” disco, dance, party, have sex and play rock ‘n’ roll, and no one was going to stop us!
I have more photos from the other Backdoor gig, but I want your history to be comprehensive: Give all the bands their due. The Cardiac Kidz may be labeled punk-rock pioneers, but we all were part of that wagon train.
— Jim Ryan