The Paisley Underground
One day while looking through the LA Weekly I saw a band called The Numbers would be performing at the Music Machine. It made me think of the Who’s original name the High Numbers and I had to check them out. I showed up and saw their set which included seemingly cool pop numbers with a 60’s vibe. I met the guys and asked if they would like to be interviewed and was interrupted by an older guy who had an angelic face and was soft spoken.
Greg Shaw introduced himself and said that The Numbers were on his record label Voxx, a subsidiary of BOMP! Records. I told Greg I had a fanzine and he said I should come down to the BOMP! Offices one day for a tour. I was excited at the opportunity to see the office of a record label. When I got there you had to bang on a large metal door in order to get in. It was somewhat of an industrial area in LA, not where you would expect a record company to be. Once Greg opened the door I saw racks and racks of vinyl 7” and 12” records, piles of magazines and the walls were covered with every album he had released.
He had a walk-in vault and inside was the entire Sun Records collection. In the far back of the offices I met Paul Grant who was doing the word processing for Greg’s BOMP! magazine. Greg asked me to step in his private office. I sat across from him comfortably plopped in a big leather chair. At that moment the phone rang and Greg said “Answer it, you are now my intern.”
So it began, I would show up at the office every day for a few hours. My pay was in records. My duties were to answer the phone and assist Suzy Shaw (Greg’s ex-wife) in the mail order department. Greg pretty much showed me all the ins and outs of making a record. From the recording studio, to the mastering and pressing. Then there was college radio and independent distribution. I was getting hands-on education which was more interesting than college. In the first couple of days I sat and stared at all the records on the wall and answered the phone.
At this time Greg launched a new subsidiary label called Voxx and on it were to be some of the most iconic bands from what is referred to as “The Paisley Underground.” Greg was eager to teach me about any and all cool music.
On my first day Greg gave me a copy of the Flamin’ Groovies “Shake Some Action” album with great excitement. I remember looking at them on the front cover and thinking to myself how impeccably polished they were dressed and that they reminded me of the Beatles. When I put the record on for a spin I had to constantly repeat the intro to “Shake Some Action.” I was grateful to Greg for turning me on to such great music. Greg also took me on field trips and one such trip was the infamous Gold Star where the Beach Boys among others recorded.
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Greg and Suzy were like surrogate parents. They would often advance me money for rent and I would quickly pay them back. They would refer to me as Gidget and they laughed at my jokes. Paul Grant who was from New York thought I had the best dry humor, he often made me laugh as well. Greg stepped up my duties to type press releases, booking showcases and radio interviews for his Voxx Artists. On weekends we hung out at the Rave Up in MacArthur Park and later he opened his own club showcasing his artists at the Cavern Club in Hollywood. There was a big scene brewing and every weekend we would be at the club to see the Pandoras, the Unclaimed, Thee Unforgiven, the Gravedigger V, and many more bands.
I would often book these bands at clubs around town like the Lhasa or the Club Lingerie. My press releases were often given much criticism by Greg because he was a writer and I was a novice, but I listened to him and would crank out press releases to go out with vinyl copies to college radio stations. I would also arrange radio interviews for Voxx artists and mini tours. One of the bands I particularly took a liking to were The Things, a psych rock band I went on the road with a couple of times. One tour in particular was going up to Portland in the 80’s. The Things were going to open up for Voxx’s garage greats, The Miracle Workers.
My friend Jenny and I were offered a place to stay at the manager of the Miracle Workers house. I remember it was November and I was ill prepared for the cold wet weather. The guys in the Miracle Workers were really great tour guides though. They took us thrift shopping and to record shops and old diners. The thrift shopping in Portland was untapped, I found lots of amazing 60’s clothes including a metallic pink/black/gold Nehru collared jacket.
The night of the show came at the Satyricon which was Portland’s version of CBGB’s. Jenny and I were dancing up front along with the girlfriends of the band. The Miracle Workers in my opinion were the best garage band on Voxx Records. It wouldn’t be long before I would be seeing them again.
The Miracle Workers came down a couple times for shows and one time they stayed over the Thanksgiving holiday. We all went to a coffee shop and had a Thanksgiving dinner. The following day the band started recording their infamous album Inside Out at Silvery Moon Studios which was run by Gary Stern. Jenny and I would make the band sandwiches and hang out at the sessions. Greg was there of course producing and was with his girlfriend Lori McAllister of The Orchid’s and briefly in the Runaways.
The Miracle Workers would eventually move to Hollywood with roomate Perry Farrell from the popular LA group Psi-Com. They had great parties at the Wilcox house as it was known. Their parties had a lot of the cowpunk scenesters, Redd Kross and one of their roommates was a hippy girl with long dreadlocks named Jane. I assume she was a big influence on Perry’s next band Jane’s Addiction and the song “Jane Says.” A skinny cute boy with long hair and a Led Zeppelin shirt was hanging out, Dave Navarro who later would be Perry’s band partner.
I was inspired by one of Greg’s colleagues Lisa Fancher who started her own label Frontier Records. I wanted to start my own label too. I went to her apartment one day to get some sage advice and soon after she asked me to be in a video for one of her label acts, the Three O’ Clock for their song “Jetfighter.” I appeared in the beginning at an airport café wearing a pink dress and stirring my soda with a straw.
My label was called Music Rage Records and I released a 12” EP for the Corsairs. We had a release party at Madame Wong's West in Santa Monica. The place was packed, even Gary Stewart was there. He was another supportive mentor and friend who also liked The Corsairs. I had 1000 pressings independently distributed and we had a lot of airplay on indie and college radio. Greg was quite proud. Even Rodney played a song on the air. They never fully took off, even years later when Roger Manning from Jellyfish joined the group.
Another band on my label were The Mutts, a group of motley boys who liked the Rolling Stones and did cover songs like “Poison Ivy.” The singer was an artist named Spencer who made amazing t-shirts of rock stars with pop art imagery. One day the bass player and I were driving around when all of the sudden Rodney played a song off the EP. We were screaming ecstatically and almost got into an accident because of the shock and joy of hearing it on the radio. Greg put one of their songs “Anxious Color” on his “Battle Of The Garages, Vol. 3: The Paisley Underground.”
One night at the Rave Up I looked across the club to see two girls screaming and pulling each other's hair, it was violent. I don’t know how the fight started, but when it was over I went to the smaller girl nicknamed Hershey and asked if she was alright. She was a sweet girl and we quickly became best friends.
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The paisley underground wasn’t just in Los Angeles, there was a big scene in San Diego. The Tell Tale Hearts were on the Voxx label and they were really good. Jenny decided to go to college in San Diego and moved down there and got an apartment. Hershey would take the bus over to my house in Burbank from Hollywood regularly and together we would often take bus rides to San Diego for weekend long antics. Hershey followed suit moving to San Diego and became Jenny’s roommate for a while.
I had a big party for my 21st birthday. Just about every band from the LA paisley underground was there. I had an open bar and I was making spaghetti. I wore a Peggy Moffitt style mod white dress with clear plastic sections around the midriff.
Gary Wilde was Rodney Bingenheimer’s engineer at KROQ; he and his girlfriend were on the porch blazing on acid when the cops arrived.I ran to the door with spaghetti sauce spilled all over the front of my tailor made mod white dress and I said “Hi it’s my 21st birthday!” The two policemen smiled and turned around and walked away.
The Tell Tale Hearts were doing a show at the Club Lingerie so I set them up at my house. Hershey showed up and we all got blasted drunk.The next night at the show, I got drunk again and danced the night away. The end of the night came and went and with it was the share of pay that I failed to pick up from Brendan Mullen for booking a sellout show at the Club Lingerie. I was very irresponsible about money.
One of the last things I did in the paisley underground was to take part in a joke. I got together with my friend Alan from The Corsairs and we went into the studio and he recorded a track in 1 day called “Summer of Love”. He was snubbed from the scene so we wanted to take the piss and make a joke. I immediately told Rodney about this band I had met called Hidden Peace, which was The Corsairs and I wearing wigs. I told Rodney they wrote a song for him called “Summer of Love.” He was excited at the prospect.
We went down to Greg’s club one night as Hidden Peace, all decked out with our psychedelic/garage clothes and wigs. Everyone was wondering who we were. Alan was wearing a caveman vest with a tooth necklace and a black wig with bangs in his eyes. My wig was platinum blonde and I wore a garage mini with pink fishnets and white go - go boots. I looked kind of like Iggy Pop with that wig on. A label from Greece signed Hidden Peace and “Summer of Love” became one of Rodney’s regular songs on KROQ. Greg also released it on his “Battle Of The Garages, Vol. 3: The Paisley Underground.”
Photo of Greg and I by Judy Wishart. All others taken by me or are part of my personal archives.