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Los Angeles Times Sunday Calendar March 5, 1989

The Thelonious Monster Mash What’s L.A.’s maverick rock group doing recording Tracy Chapman?

by Robert Hilburn

Thelonious Monster is as irreverent and fiercely independent a rock band as any to come out of Los Angeles in the ‘80s. The group’s live shows early in its career were so unruly that I twice left clubs assuming the group had just broken up. If lead Monster Bob Forrest wasn’t battling with his own bandmates, he was causing havoc with club owners or sound men.

“We’ve got four managers,” Forrest once said. “And they don’t do anything except tell club owners, ‘I’m sorry for the way the band acted.’ “

The title of the group’s first album underscored the satire and sarcasm in the band’s themes: “Baby…You’re Bummin’ My Life Out In A Supreme Fashion.”

So what are these rock mavericks doing performing “For My Lover,” a song by establishment darling Tracy Chapman on their new “Stormy Weather” album?

It’s got to be a gag, right?

“No way,” growled lead singer Forrest, his right hand wrapped around a bottle of beer in a Fairfax area Mexican restaurant that is a favorite of local rock musicians.

“I like Tracy Chapman,” he continued. “I never realized someone might think [doing the song] was a gag until people started asking us about it. A lot of our fans seem defensive about the song. I guess it’s the fact that she’s so popular, but we were doing that song before anyone knew who she was. I saw her in Washington D.C. a year ago.”

The explanation shouldn’t come as a surprise to those who have been paying close attention to Monster’s music—as opposed to the band’s chaotic behavior and Forrest’s eccentric appearance (with his long, stringy hair and mischievous grin, he often looks like someone who just stepped off the set of a British comedy).

As a writer and singer, Forrest has shown a sharp and original vision in his own songs, and an integrity and imagination in his choice of outside material, which has ranged from Bob Dylan to Public Image Ltd.

In “Sammy Hagar Weekend” from the new album (released by Relativity Records and produced by X’s John Doe). Forrest writes with a satiric edge worthy of Randy Newman.

On one level, the song can be taken as a straightforward celebration of rock’s live-fast, love-hard, die-young syndrome. The scene is a hard-rock/metal concert at Anaheim Stadium. Sample lines:

‘We’re going to drink some beer We’re going to smoke some pot We’re going to snort some coke And drive, drive over 55”

Yet there is a slightly sad—or weary—tone in Forrest’s voice and arrangement that, when coupled with the irresponsibility of the behavior depicted, gives the song different coloring.

“I lived that song. I went to Anaheim Stadium when I was in high school to see what I thought was a great lineup: Hagar, Van Halen, Black Sabbath and Boston. The show didn’t start until Sunday, but we go there Friday night and waited in the parking lot. It was the first time I ever drank whiskey.

“I’m trying to make fun of what we all thought was cool. It’s also a hope we all grow up and find out how stupid it is to be like that. When I was 16, I thought cruising and boozing was what people did. So what did it get me? Two 502s…One of the themes of the new album is growing up, and that song is part of all that for me.”

Thelonious Monster’s “Next Saturday Afternoon” was one of the neglected rock gems of 1987: a look at post-teen alienation that explored questions of identity and self-worth in tough unflinching ways that recalled the passion and purpose of some of rock’s most biting collections. Think of Neil Young’s “Tonight’s The Night” meets the Replacements’ “Tim”.

The themes came easy to Forrest, a Southern Californian who was adopted by a couple that he later learned were really his grandparents. The woman he thought was his sister had given birth to him when she was 14.

Forrest, 28, says he has never met his real father—a fact that contributes to the poignancy of “My Boy,” a song on the new album. It was written a year ago when Forrest still hadn’t held his year-old song. (Forrest said he and the son’s mother weren’t married and no longer saw each other at the time.)

Far from the sweetness of father-child songs like Dylan’s “Forever Young,” this one speaks of the day when the boy will grow up and resent the absence of the father. It’s a song of pain and, in Forrest’s words, “history repeating itself.”

In the past year, however, Forrest has begun to spend time with the boy and says other aspects of his personal life are more stable.

Rather than repeat the alienation of “Next Saturday Afternoon,” “Stormy Weather” is a step into adulthood—a grappling with relationships and the world outside.

Though still far from the smooth or dance-happy edges preferred by mainstream radio, the album is more accessible than its predecessor. There are some winning melodic touches amid the occasional all-out, slam-bam rock ’n’ roll.

About the changes, Forrest said, “I thought ‘Saturday Afternoon’ was good for what it did, but you can’t keep writing those songs. That album was all about what I did and thought and felt. I remember going up to Mike Martt, our guitar player, on day and told him I had a new tune. He looked at me and said, ‘Oh, who is it about? You…or you?’

One of the first songs he wrote in a “outward” vein was “Lena Horne Still Sings ‘Stormy Weather.’” He had seen a TV profile on the celebrated singer and was impressed by how she had battled against various challenges, especially racism, in the personal and professional life.

“The world needs that attitude, that resiliency,” Forrest said. “Things are in awful shape…More homeless people, more gang violence, less and less people graduating from high school. I love this city, but what’s it all going to come to? Are they going to put up a fence between Crenshaw Boulevard and the Westside?

“The problem is everyone starts feeling helpless. They don’t realize that a lot of other people share the same concerns and that they can do something if they pull together. The song encourages people to think that the problems can be solved. Even after all she’s been through, Lena Horne DOES still sing ‘Stormy Weather.’ “

Forrest needed some resilience himself after “Next Saturday Afternoon” was largely ignored by both radio and the public.

“There was a lot of excitement around town when the record came out and I got into thinking I was going to be this next big deal,” he said. “But we were our own worst enemies on that tour. I’ve said that in the past, but this time was really bad.

“We weren’t just screwing up at some little club around town, where people knew us and thought it was just us partying again. Here people came to see a show and I was drunk most of the time, insulting people—even the people from our own record company. By the end of the tour, I was just like an emotional basket case. Suicidal…weird…I couldn’t figure out what was going on, why we weren’t getting anywhere.”

Dejected, he returned home and thought about the future.

“One day I woke up and realized that most of the problems were because of me. I realized, and the band did too, we almost made it with the last album. We almost got to a point where we can live in houses and have cars.

“That’s all I ever wanted. We don’t want to ruin it. I still have a drinking problem, but I try to control it. I don’t drink anymore on the the day of the show until I get on stage, for instance. I’m proud of the band and I want the music to be the show—not my [behavior].”

Yet the head Monster—who is joined in the band now by guitarists Martt and Tony Malone, drummer Pete Weiss and bassist Rob Graves—may find it hard to keep his behavior from being an issue.

Last weekend at the Green Door in Montclair, Forrest appeared clear-eyed at the star of the set, letting the music speak for itself. Gradually, however, Forrest, himself, became the focus. Taking big swigs of beer, he grumbled between songs about everything from club equipment to the band’s fortunes.

This tension may be an integral part of Forrest’s creative process, but the danger is it will camouflage the excellence of the Monster’s music. There are lots of unruly band in rock, but too few with the ability to make music as enthralling as that found on “Stormy Weather.” The band tries it again Friday at Fender’s in Long Beach and Saturday at the Country Club in Reseda.

“Put it this way,” Forrest said, during the interview at the restaurant, summarizing his frustration good-naturedly. “If Bon Jovi can make $42 million or whatever last year, I thought Bob Forrest ought to be able to make $1,000 a month. That seems fair—and the public would get to hear some better songs.”

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Flipside 80 Sept./Oct. 1992 Permanent Green Light and Redd Kross feature stories by Karl Rumpf

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Redd Kross

LA ROCKS! vol 2 no 6

Sept 4, 1987

REDD KROSS - by Ruben McBlue

BLUE: Okay folks, we’re here with REDD KROSS’s Steve and Jeff McDonald and friend David. The guitar player and drummer couldn’t make it cause they had pressing engagements.

STEVE: They had satanic rituals to perform…before midnight.

BLUE: We have Steve and Jeff here, the two brothers that started the band. Right?

STEVE: Yeah, the only important ones…(laughter)

They might be important to their girlfriends, I guess…(laughter).

BLUE: Okay, when did you guys start?

STEVE: My heart started beating when I was four.

JEFF: We started in 1978.

BLUE: How old were you then?

STEVE: I was 25, he was about 30, then(laughter) naw, I was 11, he was 15.

BLUE: And you actually started then?

JEFF: Yeah, we learned how to play instruments, write songs and started REDD KROSS all at the same time.

BLUE: Well, that’s different…(laughter) and were you a punk band then? What did you play then?

STEVE: Well, RICK JAMES kind of ripped our thing off, James, but we were a punk funk band, that was our thing. We were called punk funk.

JEFF: We were heavily influenced by the “Busting Out” album by RICK JAMES, but we were beginning to sound like the RAMONES. We couldn’t pull of major fame.

STEVE: It goes back to our New Delhi roots, actually.

JEFF: Oh, that’s such a long story.

STEVE: I know, a lot of people know about it.

JEFF: Wes used to live in India when we were kids, cause our Dad was in the military. They started like, folk music there, and we came back to America and punk rock was just starting and it was so easy to play, so…

STEVE: We were kind of like Hindu Folk, a folk duo (laughter).

BLUE: Did you have a sitar?

BOTH: No.

JEFF: It was like instead of Americans playing Indian flavored music, it was Indians playing American flavored music…

STEVE: My guitar might as well have been a sitar, cause I played it the way I would play a sitar.

BLUE: So where did you play? Hong Kong Cafe?

STEVE: Oh no, there were a lot of folk type places in New Delhi.

JEFF: Oh you mean after we came back.

BLUE: Yeah.

JEFF: Oh, we used to play the Hong Kong, the Fleetwood in Redondo Beach and Bijou.

STEVE: Which was once called the Cokes Theater.

JEFF: We used to do all the clubs that were happening back then.

BLUE: And your named was spelled like, Red Cross, then right?

STEVE: Yeah, the American Red Cross.

BLUE: What happen, you had a law suit or something?

JEFF: You can’t really just go ripping off peoples names.

STEVE: It’s like my brother’s name, Jeff, you know there’s other Jeffs, he’s ripped them off (laughter).

BLUE: What about the Dead Kennedys?

JEFF: There was never a project or organization called Dead Kennedys.

STEVE: There were many Kennedys that were dead at the time (laughter), so they copyrighted the concept I guess (ore laughter).

BLUE: Okay, so you just changed the “K” and the other “D”?

JEFF: We got radically sued. You go to court so you can lose like hell.

STEVE: Yeah, I used to go into court crying a say I couldn’t finish my homework and my grades were getting really bad.

JEFF: We ended up owing them $3,000 in damage, so we had to pawn all our equipment, but we were okay, we bounced back.

STEVE: Yeah, we bounced back, and jumped into prostitution (laughter).

BLUE: Actually, you’ve been progressing every since?

STEVE: Yeah, I think the prostitution period really… (laughter).

JEFF: I liked the prostitution, we had two girls in the band…

STEVE: See, when that happened we were like, what are we going to do, so we decided on pimping. We got two chicks and put them in the band as a really good cover up.

STEVE: I like lost all my equipment and I was 13 too. They were coming down hard on me.

JEFF: We thought they wouldn’t pick on us cause we were just little kids.

JEFF: That was Jan and Tracy.

STEVE: Yeah, Jan and Tracy, and me and Jeff became professional pimps. We didn’t know what else to do with them in their spare time.

JEFF: Yeah, then they started getting too old and we had to ditch them.

STEVE: They started to grow chest hair.

JEFF: So we greased and shaved them, then put them on their way. (laughter)

BLUE: Are these real girls, are they going to be offended if we write this?

JEFF: No, you can write it, they’ll probably be offended.

STEVE: I think they told their parents by now. (laughter)

BLUE: So where do you guys live? Where do you hang out mostly?

JEFF: I try to hang out in North Hollywood as much as possible.

STEVE: I’ve been staying in Shirley McClain’s guest house lately.

BLUE: Aren’t you guys from Hermosa Beach somewhere?

STEVE: Our guitars are from Hermosa Beach (laughter). It’s a small island in the South Pacific. It’s getting hard, we’re having a hard time commuting back and forth to rehearsal in Hermosa Island. A lot of people get Catalina confused with Hermosa Island, but (laughter)… I’ve been staying in Shirley McClain’s guest house, she lives in Lawndale (laughter), and it’s a really nice pad.

BLUE: I hear Lawndale Rocks!

STEVE: Well, you mean the band or the city?

BLUE: The city.

STEVE: Sort of like the band or the magazine! (laughter)

JEFF: You see, Lawndale was really happening back in the early 70’s when people like Edgar Winters, were going to clubs down there, but it kind of died.

STEVE: The club circuit kind of died in Lawndale. The most incredible landmark was the Robin Trower riot.

JEFF: That was incredible!

STEVE: It was insane. That was like ’69 or ’70.

JEFF: For some reason, they had a strip like Sunset and they had all these major clubs where major acts played and stuff in the 70’s. ROBIN TROWER, EDGAR WINTER…

STEVE: FOGHAT, MOLLY HATCHET, so that’s what influenced us, we came from New Delhi and came to Los Angeles, and hung out in Lawndale and Hawthorne, that’s where our parents lived. But there’s no more club circuit there.

BLUE: Do you guys still live there?

BOTH: Yeah!

STEVE: I’ve been staying in Lawndale.

BLUE: Were you guys in on this Bomp Records movement when they tried to have the Cavern Club and all this 60’s psychodelic stuff?

JEFF: No, we’re just trying to start a punk revival. We’re producing a band called ANARCHY 6 right now. We had to shy away from the 60’s underground, we thought there was no future in the 60’s. We thought the real future was in the 70’s.

STEVE: Especially like the punk rock 70’s.

JEFF: Hardcore punk rock!

STEVE: A lot of people don’t realize that hardcore lives.

BLUE: So you’re really producing a hardcore band?

STEVE: Yeah, ANARCHY 6.

JEFF: We’re kind of like the Rick Rubin, we’re like the Mick Jagger/Keith Richards.

STEVE: We’re kind of like the Glimmer Twins of ANARCHY 6.

JEFF: Of hardcore punk rock.

STEVE: Kevin Flemme, Joe Hardcore on lead guitar.

BLUE: So you lost hop in the 60’s and you’re into the 70’s.

STEVE: See we were in New Delhi when everything was going down.

JEFF: Actually there is no future in the 70’s, we’re going back to the 50’s, cause we feel the doo-wop has been ignored. (laughter) We’re trying to incorporate our REDD KROSS flavoring with doo-wop.

STEVE: Yeah, there’s a lot of poseurs, like SHA NA NA. People just get a misconception of what doo-wop is all about (laughter)

BLUE: But don’t you guys wear, like paisley shirts and striped bell bottoms?

JEFF: no.

STEVE: Some people confuse us with SHA NA NA, cause we wear the gold lame jumpsuits (laughter) but, the thing is our crotches are much larger than theirs. (laughter)

BLUE: How do we tell when you guys are serous and when you’re not?

JEFF: We’re basically always serious.

STEVE: We’re very serious, we don’t joke.

JEFF: We jok…

STEVE: I mean there are times, I say like “knock, knock who’s there?!” You know, SHA NA NA! (laughter) But, our band is very serious ya know, we wouldn’t be telling you these deep inner thoughts about our musi in ou past if I wasn’t serious about it. So…

JEFF: You’re not going to smoke another cigarette, are you?

STEVE: Yes, I’m very serious about it. (laughter)

JEFF: Yes, cancer is very important, it helps build one’s mystic.

BLUE: So your music is kind of like, uh…

STEVE: Like trash.

JEFF: No it’s like THE COWSILLS meets BLACK SABBATH. DAVID CASSIDY meets…

BLUE: It’s not the PARTRIDGE FAMILY meets KISS?

STEVE: It’s kind of like the cast of Three’s Company got a band together, a bad combo of them and the cast of Wonder Bug.

BLUE: Let me ask you about some of the songs on the new record. “Peach Kelli Pop”, what’s this song about?

JEFF: It’s about Public Kelli, she was a character in a Hostess cartoon show in the late sixties. The song is basically talking about L.A.

BLUE: That’s the song that says something about The Rainbow.

JEFF: The song has nothing to do with The Rainbow, the only reason we mentioned The Rainbow is because she was busted for ripping off something at a boutique on Sunset, and she went to The Rainbow and got busted, cause she was trying to ditch the cops.

BLUE: What about “Love Is You”?

JEFF: “Love Is You” is like, about Love is you, no, Love is you…

STEVE: Love is you, no love is you!

JEFF: I guess love is a badf concept and you just go to bed just calling them ‘love’ and they say, ‘no, love is you’ and you say, “no, Love is you”. We live in a society where hate was, like good, and love was bad, and you don’t want to insult anybody for saying that.

STEVE: I didn’t realize that myself.

BLUE: And then “Neurotica”, what’s that one about?

JEFF: “Neurotica” is about being really sane and having a real mellow life.

STEVE: It was sort of inspired by Eddie Van Halen and Valerie’s marraige.

JEFF: We went out with them one weekend and it was just too heavy.

STEVE: Valerie Van Halen has just been blowing minds lately, she actually invented the hammer-on technique (mimics the famous guitar hammer-on technique). That’s what the song is about.

BLUE: What about “Janus, Jeanie And George Harrison”? Who are Janus and Jeanie?

JEFF: Janus and Jeanie, they’re girls and George Harrison.

BLUE: And what do they have in common?

JEFF: God.

BLUE: What about your music, are you more heavy metal, pop or psychodelic?

JEFF: We’re kind of reggae, or doo-wop even. We’re actually kind of heavy metal like EZO.

STEVE: We’re kind of like, if Mick Mars and Linda Grace had babies (quadruplets), that’s like our music.

BLUE: If we did this interview tomorrow, would the answer be different?

JEFF: They’d be exactly the same everytime we do interviews they think we’re joking, but we’re serious, just because we have smiles on our faces.

STEVE: I don’t have to stay in Shirley McClain’s guest house.

BLUE: What’s your favorite band?

BOTH: Salty Dog.

BLUE: What’s your favorite club?

BOTH: Coconut Teazer.

JEFF: Do you have a restroom here?

BLUE: Yea, right around the corner. (Jeff leaves to sink his lemon)

STEVE MCDONALD INTERVIEW

STEVE: Is this the Steve McDonald interview now?

BLUE: Are you the older or younger brother?

STEVE: Younger, Jeff’s ten years older than me, he’s 30. Don’t tell anyone, though.

BLUE: He’s more talented then.

STEVE: I’m more talented, ya know, the gods gave it to me.

BLUE: Has the band always had the same members?

STEVE: Well, I’ve always had the same members on my body. We’ve had quite a few, I already told you about the prostitutes in our band.

BLUE: How many albums do you have?

STEVE: Four, counting EPs and some songs on compilations.

BLUE: How often do you guys rehearse?

JEFF: Hardly at all, it takes some of your soul, everytime you rehearse.

STEVE: It’s like soul-stealing.

JEFF: It’s like cameras and tape recorders.

STEVE: Cameras a like portable soul-stealers.

BLUE: We’re stealing your soul right now.

STEVE: Someone like Ron Keel, they don’t take many pictures of him, see, it’s because he doesn’t have a lot of soul left.

BLUE: Anything else you guys want to say?

BOTH: Be uptight, have a horrible time, quit school, move to… Montclair, and smell the glove.

BLUE: If you’re serious about your life, go see REDD KROSS Sunday, Sept 6 (1987) at the Hollywood Hills Music Festival.

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Thelonious Monster Los Angeles Times Feb. 9, 1991

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L.A. Guns in the pages of L.A. ROCKS!

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Kill it, or go home.

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Aerosmith & Guns N’ Roses Pacific Amphitheatre - Costa Mesa, CA September 1988 Los Angeles Times concert review by Robert Hilburn

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The Flaming Lips: Live medley - 12/30/2014 - The Warfield, S.F.

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San Francisco January 1, 2015

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The Flaming Lips at The Warfield in San Francisco on New Year's Eve 2014

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Redd Kross "Huge Wonder" recorded at the Beastie Boys' G-Son Studios in Atwater Village, CA - 1991 from Redd Kross "Trance" (seminal TWANG CD single) Twang 14 - May 1992 written by Jeff & Steve McDonald produced by Dave Peterson & Redd Kross The G-Son Studios version of "Huge Wonder" was originally released on the filp side of the "Super Sunny Christmas" 7" single, and is a different recording than what is found on Redd Kross' 1993 LP Phaseshifter.

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OFF! "Over Our Heads" Live At The Roxy Theatre April 23, 2014 Keith Morris Steve McDonald Dimitri Coats Mario Rubalcaba

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djrokymanson: This can be yours! eBay item number: 291061828293 Original flyer from Suicidal Tendencies mailing list. This is the legendary Grand Olympic Auditorium show in which Keith Morris (Black Flag / Circle Jerks) filled in for Red Hot Chili Peppers lead singer Anthony Keidis. Minutemen and SSD also shared the bill The backside of the flyer contains: --  ink-stamped return address for Suicidal Tendencies in Venice, CA --  post mark from Culver City, CA dated May 10, 1984 --  mailing address handwritten by Mike Muir

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L.A. Rock Review Vol. 1 No. 9 April 29, 1988 In this issue Cover feature interview with Gilby Clarke's pre-Guns N Roses band Kill For Thrills Photographs and shows reviews of L.A. Guns, Tex & The Horseheads, Pygmy Love Circus, The Nymphs, Sylvia Juncosa, L7, Sinead O'Connor, Gaye Bykers On Acid, Swans, Motorcycle Boy, Balaam & The Angel, Funhouse, SWA, Nomeansno Club/Gig ads from The Whisky A-Go-Go, Gazzarri's, Goldenvoice, Coconut Teazer L.A. Rock Review was a tabloid newspaper that covered the Hollywood rock scene. It was founded by former contributors of L.A. ROCKS! (pre-Rock City News), and published every week between 1988-1991. L.A. Rock Review could be found for free in nightclubs and record stores throughout L.A & Orange County. The paper's writers and photographers were at all of Hollywood top clubs; The Whisky & The Roxy on the Sunset Strip, Raji's, Cathouse, Club Lingerie & Scream Club in Hollywood.

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L.A. ROCKS! Vol. 1 No. 6 Friday September 5 - Thursday September 18 1986 Aerosmith cover + two-page spread feature & interview Interview with the owner of Hollywood's legendary Scream Club, Michael Stewart (the club that gave Jane's Addiction their start) Photos and gig reviews featuring: Guns N Roses, Social Distortion, L.A. Guns, Anthony Keidis of Red Hot Chili Peppers, Bob Forrest of Thelonious Mosnter LA ROCKS! was a tabloid newspaper that covered the Hollywood rock scene. It was published every other week between 1986-1988 (before evolving into Rock City News), and distributed for free in nightclubs and record stores throughout L.A & Orange County. LA ROCKS! featured bands such as Guns N Roses, Jane's Addiction, Red Hot Chili Peppers, L.A. Guns, Faster Pussycat and more, long before any of them became famous. The paper's writers and photographers were at all of Hollywood top clubs; The Whisky & The Roxy on the Sunset Strip, Raji's, Club Lingerie & Scream Club in Hollywood.