The Answers come alive! Here’s a very hot number from the 1982 lineup of this protean band. Dave Fleminger sets the scene for this song, which perfectly captures the SD teen spirit we’re celebrating on Che Underground: The Blog.
“The Answers, opening the day’s festivities at ‘Mod Mania,’ hosted by Lumpy at the Adams Ave. Theater, Sept. 18, 1982. Dave Fleminger (guitar/voice); Tony Suarez (bass/voice); David Anderson (drums).
“I’m kind of glad the vocals aren’t clear on this recording, as you first get the message of the song through the energy of the performance rather than the words.
“The song’s title, ‘Teenage Problems,’ gives some indication of how clumsy the lyrics are. Indeed, the words form some kind of dispassionate, third-party description of the clumsy world of teenager-dom, written of course by a teenager. (Don’t ever try to rhyme “youth” with “vermouth” … That’s a bad idea.)
“However, this line of verse I did want to share because I think it sums up the song:
‘I think the teenage mind has growing-older fears,
That combat with the mature yearnings of these over-anxious years’
“This is a particularly clumsy lyric that I somehow syncopated, or shoehorned, into the second verse. For me it’s a little time-capsule of uncertainty … I wanted to feel older, to have experience and not seem like a kid, but I didn’t want to actually be that much older.
“In other words: I wanted to be able to buy beer, but I didn’t want to not be carded.”
Dave has a “studio” version recorded. The Studio being my parents converted garage to the Suarez rumpus room. We used a matress to muffle the drums if I recall.
What a driving song..I like it a lot!
That flyer is cool…does anyone remember NE1? Their sax player, Ed Croft, started out in the Rockin’ Dogs.
(A Che Underground aside … We’re having a blackout here in heat-stricken New Jersey, and the Blackberry is my only means of communication. It’s a sign of your charming personalities and my own obsessive-compulsive tendencies that I’m using my battery juice to read Answers trivia!)
Yeah Dave I do remember that. the Rocking Dogs ruled! Answers were on of my favorite bands. I thought Dave Flem was a guitar god, still do actually.
Great to hear the early end of the Answers spectrum!
Somewhere earlier on, I describe how this same Answers show really affected me. That was after the Crawdaddys became the Howling Men and went to LA. There was a hole left for a while. God, when Dave reassembled the Answers and played at Adams, I was struck. P-p-p-p-power Pop!
Thanks.
Jerry, It was a Sept show at Adams Ave theatre in 1982. Mr Flem sent me a cd of the taped show. I can hear Mr Flem calling out your name during the show a few times.
To think that the hallowed halls of that theatre house remnants of fabric. It’s alot smaller than I remember in size.
Tony Suarez