This One's For Carrie!
Carrie- Dirty Looks Turn It Up
Living For The Weekend- Farrah Moustache
Rock 'n Roll Is The Answer- Joey Ramone ...Ya Know?
She's Boss- Psycotic Pineapple Where's The Party
Turn It Up Loud- Candy Whatever Happened To Fun
Hey DJ- Paul Collins' Beat Ribbon Of Gold
I Won't Let Me- Descendents Everything Sucks
Happy Most Of The Time- Brendan Benson What Kind Of World
^Weekend- Wet Willie Which One's Willie
Full Power- Pezband Cover To Cover
You Need A Friend- Sunnyboys Individuals
You Need Pop- The Speedies Speedy Delivery
I Slept In An Arcade- Black Randy And Metrosquad I Slept In An Arcade 7"
Ready To Snap- The Wanderers Only Lovers Left Alive
*Weekend- The Boys Boys Only
*Weekend- Bankrupt Rewound
*Weekend- Last Dinosaurs In A Million Years
*Weekend- The Dictators Go Girl Crazy!
*Weekend- The Diodes Tired of Waking Up Tired
Researching the Blues- Redd Kross Researching The Blues
All The Things That Go To Make Heaven And Earth- The New Pornographers Challengers
I Did the Wrong Thing- The Toms The Toms
Cut to the Chase- David Myhr Soundshine
Everytime- Times Square Joanne 7"
You Can't Do That- The Tremblers Twice Nightly
>Week End- The Kingsmen Week End
Leave It In Motion- The Stompers The Stompers
Nothing To Me- Tinted Windows Tinted Windows
Before We Were Born- The dB's Falling off The Sky
Growing Up- Any Trouble Where Are All the Nice Girls?
The Weekenders- The Hold Steady Heaven Is Whenever
^Power Pop Peak: #29 Billboard Hot 100 5/26/79
*SacroSet: "Weekend" Songs
>Power Pop Prototype: 1958
How's this for a small world... Our friend Todd has a camp up in Philo, CA on the Navarro River and he asked Jaime to teach a drama class during their annual Music and Arts program earlier this month. My son Jack was at the CSSSA program at Cal Arts in Valencia, so it was just Jaime, my daughter Nica, her friend Jessie and I at River's Bend. We were staying in one of the "rustic cabins" and it was pretty nice- electricity, beds, sheets, chairs on the front porch- except for the uphill walk to the bathroom in the middle of the night (hey I'm 47 okay?).
Most of our fellow campers were self-acknowledged hippies and had been coming for at least ten years so for the first day or so we felt like outsiders. Yet there's nothing like eating three meals a day with people to break the ice and by mid week we had hit our stride. Nica and I threw our first pots on a pottery wheel while Jaime and Jessie worked with water colors, encaustic paint and mixed media collage. Afternoons were spent at a swimming hole on the Navarro a short walk from camp. I really love playing guitar around an evening camp fire and I think some of the younger campers appreciated hearing some songs recorded after 1974 for a change.
Not only had I heard of the group, I have all their records, my favorite being their LP Where's The Party? pictured above. What's more, I had already pre-recorded this week's show which included the song "She's Boss" from the album. I'd even corresponded with the group's bass player John C. Berry a few years back when I bought one of their singles on e-Bay. Turns out I was talking to Henricus Van Holtman (he's the guy on the far left) Psycotic Pineapple's guitar player. He talked about playing the Mabuhay, The Stone, The I-Beam and other legendary Bay Area clubs. 
Psychotic Pineapple shared the stage with just about everybody at the time: Crime, The Mutants, The Rubinoos, Avengers, Pearl Harbor and The Explosions, etc. Seems like they were as well known for their gig flyers as for their music. Bass player Seabury (that's the correct spelling of his name) created the character "Pynoman" who appeared on their record sleeves and flyers. (He even created an animated series in the late 90's.)On the camp's Talent Night Henry even performed a Psycotic Pineapple song, his own composition "Headcheese"
Headcheese, I like headcheese
It's got eyes and ears and nose and lips
and everything I like except the tongue
I make my own, I boil the heads and bones
Then I grind it up and put it in an ice cream cone
It's good for you, my whole family eats it
Come over to our house, you'd really like it
Come over to our house you'll have a real good time
Headcheese, it's the dead cheese
It's got eyes and ears and nose and lips
and everything I like except the tongue
Henry went to see the Sex Pistols at Winterland in January 1978. In fact, once he mentioned it I remembered hearing Psycotic Pineapple referenced in the KSAN radio interview with Steve Jones and Paul Cook that later showed up on on the Pistols' Some Product album. Despite all reports that the show was terrible, highlighted by Johnny Rotten's "ever get the feeling you've been cheated," Henry thought it was great. Of Sid Vicious Henry said: "he couldn't play a note, but man what a strap length- he could barely reach the strings." (I've heard the same said of The Clash's Paul Simenon, so it's a compliment in my book.) The video of that Winterland show is fascinating to me. The one and only encore is The Stooges' "No Fun," which ended up being the Pistols' final performance (I'm not counting the reunions and neither should you). Drummer Paul Cook is working his ass off, guitarist Steve Jones starts out trying but by the end of the song is gobbing on the audience, Sid Vicious is in a daze (he would overdose later that night and end up at the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic) and Johnny Rotten is watching all his Machiavellian conniving, cheating and scheming disintegrate before his eyes. It's pretty powerful stuff.
No fun indeed. I hope the surviving Sex Pistols can look back without bitterness and spite and appreciate the good times. That's how Henry talks about Psycotic Pineapple and their Where's The Party album back in the day. Sure the Pistols inspired a generation of douche bag Sid Vicious wannabees (just take a walk down upper Haight Street on a Saturday afternoon if you don't know what I'm talking about) but as always its the music that matters and Never Mind The Bollocks is an all-time great.
Hour 1
Hour 2
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