A Look at the ‘80s’ Best Vinyl From Home-Grown Rockers

The 1980s will go down in the annals of music history as the decade when vinyl bit the dust. But thanks to the medium’s accessibility and affordability, thousands of would-be rock stars got their first musical sounds out to the public. That was certainly true in Orange County, where dozens, perhaps hundreds, of low-budget, independent releases were stamped out during the ‘80s. Following are lists of the best of Orange County rock on record from pop music writers Mike Boehm, Randy Lewis and Jim Washburn.

MIKE BOEHM:

1. Adolescents. “Adolescents.” (Frontier). 1981. One of the first and most incendiary salvos of the Orange County punk explosion, “Adolescents” is the Orange County equivalent of the Sex Pistols’ “Never Mind the Bollocks.” The Adolescents had enough fire in their bellies to make their first album burn with loathing for social strictures, and enough pop savvy to come up with melodies and riffs that make this one of the most hummable hard-core punk albums ever recorded. Songs like “Amoeba,” “Kids of the Black Hole” and “No Way” are power-pop of the most powerful sort. Being headstrong kids, the Adolescents failed to exploit the album’s strong reception in punk circles, and the band broke up within months of its release.

2. James Harman Band. “Those Dangerous Gentlemens” (Rhino). 1987. Blues-rock regained mainstream acceptance in the late ‘80s, and it’s a shame that this album didn’t turn into the biggest blues-rock hit of ‘em all. From the pounding rock of the magnificent “My Baby’s Gone” to the country blues train-chug of “Goatman Holler,” the Harman Band displayed all the zest, assurance and depth you could ask of a band.

3. Pontiac Brothers. “Fiesta en la Biblioteca.” (Frontier). 1986. Two other Pontiacs’ albums, “Doll Hut” and “Johnson,” wouldn’t have been out of place on this list. But “Fiesta” gets the nod as the most varied and distinctive release by this fine Fullerton band. Like the Replacements, whom they resemble, the now-defunct Pontiacs played with heart, abandon and a sense of humor.

4. Eggplant. “Monkeybars.” (Dr. Dream). 1989. The Southern California rock scene grew obsessed with “attitude” in the ‘80s. Eggplant emerged as an antidote to the put-on Hollywood “street rocker” ethic: a band mercifully free from posing because it was too busy exercising imagination and creativity in its own unassuming way. Combining such sharp influences as the Velvet Underground, Camper Van Beethoven and Neil Young with its own personal quirks, Eggplant’s low-budget debut album was funny, poignant and impressively varied.

5. Adolescents. “Balboa Fun Zone.” (Triple X). 1988. A regrouped, post-adolescent band of Adolescents showed a matured vision and a much-expanded musical ken on “Fun Zone,” which ranged from thrashing punk to crunching, Alice Cooper-style rockers to the wistful, folk-tinged title song. “Fun Zone” is a moving song cycle about kids who stumble into just about every youthful pitfall there is, yet still manage to grow up in the end. For the second time in their career, the Ads broke up after putting out a superior album, but “Fun Zone” was a fine way to go.

6. Walter Trout Band. “Life in the Jungle.” (Bozz of Electra--import only). 1989. With John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, Trout would rampage through fast, unfettered solos. That wild side came through on his first solo album, but it was tempered by a new sense of control and sensitivity. Trout showed himself to be a multiple threat: a soulful ballad singer, a monster guitarist, a forceful blues-harp blower, a first-rate interpreter of blues standards, and a composer of memorable, rock- and pop-oriented originals. Recorded in Denmark, where Trout has built a following, “Jungle” will turn some stateside heads if it can get a well-deserved U.S. release.

7. Social Distortion. “Prison Bound.” (Restless). 1988. With “Prison Bound,” band leader Mike Ness, the quintessential Orange County punk rocker, offered a bookend album that comments and reflects upon “Mommy’s Little Monster,” Social Distortion’s strong 1983 debut album. “Monster” celebrated wild punk rebellion. “Prison Bound” was a cautionary song cycle about where wild rebellion can lead if it isn’t tempered eventually by maturity. The album is noteworthy for its honesty, its incorporation of country influences into S.D.’s trademark wall-of-guitars attack, and for the title track, one of the finest rock songs of the 1980s--not just here, but anywhere.

8. Ann De Jarnett. “Possessions.” (Dr. Dream). 1988. De Jarnett’s first full-length album (after a good debut EP) displayed impeccable song craft and a strong, emotive voice full of cool fire. De Jarnett came up with ironic rockers and romantic ballads that steered clear of formulas and cliches while displaying a keen melodic sense. One could quibble that the production and band performance erred at times on the side of restraint, but every song on “Possessions” sticks in the memory.

9. Agent Orange. “Living in Darkness.” (Posh Boy). 1981. When singer-guitarist Mike Palm began spinning out taut riffs full of dark drama, he made a historical connection of sorts: ‘80s punk rock was drawing upon the much older Orange County surf-rock tradition. “Darkness” took a grim look at a punk rock movement that Agent Orange believed (with justification) was beginning to sink into musical formulas and self-destructive behavior. Get the CD version for its bonus-track covers of surf-rock classics. Agent Orange followed through with more strong work, “When You Least Expect It” and “This Is the Voice,” before going into limbo in 1988.

10. James Harman Band. “Extra Napkins.” (Rivera). 1988. Harman’s aim was to re-create the raw, sweaty sound of the classic electric blues recordings of the ‘40s and ‘50s. The results were simply scrumptious on this playful, danceable album that brought Harman’s harmonica playing to the fore along with fine guitar, piano and horn work. Not a career move, really, but an enthusiastic labor of love that blues aficionados can savor.

RANDY LEWIS:

1. James Harman Band. “Extra Napkins” (Rivera). 1988. To get a full picture of the way this bar band’s bar band can swing from its base in the blues to contemporary R&B; and potboiler rock ‘n’ roll, you should also hear the more pop-oriented 1987 album on Rhino, “Those Dangerous Gentlemens.” But this strictly-the-blues outing is a personal favorite for the way it perfectly captures the good-time, let’s-have-a-rave-up-after-the-barbecue exuberance of the group’s nightly marathons during its mid-’80s heyday. Since these two albums were recorded, guitarist nonpareil Mike (Hollywood Fats) Mann died and guitarist David (Kid) Ramos and bassist Willie J. Campbell, Harman’s longtime partners in rhythm and rhyme, left the band. But Harman, drummer Stephen T. Hodges and a pair of new sidemen--guitarist Joel Foy and bassist Jeff Turmes--are still at it, though the new incarnation has yet to be documented on record.

2. Social Distortion. “Prison Bound” (Restless). 1988. Lead singer Mike Ness’ struggles with heroin were well chronicled in press interviews, but never more powerfully than Ness himself in these songs, written after dragging himself up from the depths of a personal hell. In this gripping album, the veteran punk group from Fullerton successfully took the fury and rebellion that characterized the genre and focused it through the experience and, more importantly, the wisdom gained by one individual who traversed all of punk’s excesses and somehow still lived to tell about it.

3. El Grupo Sexo. “Mom’s Home.” (Dr. Dream). 1987. This is sledgehammer rock ‘n’ roll delivered like a pie in the face. A robust sense of humor permeates the album, preventing the considerable social and political cynicism from ever being reduced to routine sermonizing. The musical melange of funk, punk, rock and schlock that characterized this late, great group’s incomparably wild live shows translated surprisingly well to vinyl.

4. Medicine Man. “ . . . ‘tween the Dark and the Moon.” (Hanging Tree). 1986. Another Fullerton band, one that has been in and out of the scene without ever really getting the credit it deserved. Lead singer Robert Lohayza is a bit like Batman when it comes to songwriting--he starts with elegantly designed, craftily intelligent lyrics and then dresses them up in a suit of rock ‘n’ roll armor fit to take on the world.

5. Wild Cards. “Cool Never Cold” (Chameleon). 1988. From the first time I saw this Cypress quartet in the auditorium of a Huntington Beach community center in 1983, I was convinced it was destined for greatness. It took nearly five years before the members committed themselves to record, and the result was this swinging, jumping exercise in jazz-inflected R&B.; Though it didn’t make the commercial splash some might have hoped for, you get the feeling the band’s best is still ahead.

6. “The Love-In.” (Out There). 1987. The Love-In’s debut six-song EP blended a sprightly pop melodic sense and exquisite feel for three-part harmony with a propulsive, sometimes hypnotic beat, The result fell somewhere between Crowded House and R.E.M. in an impressive effort that would suggest a great future. The Costa Mesa-based trio continues to play the club scene, but more in Los Angeles than in Orange County.

7. Pontiac Brothers. “Doll Hut.” (Frontier). 1985. My nod goes to the Pontiacs’ first album, even though it lacks the stronger identity that emerged in two subsequent albums, because it demonstrates best why this group got together in the first place: to play great garage-band rock and commercial considerations be damned. This is raw, swaggering, Stones-spawned rock with equal parts heart, soul and cocky attitude.

8. Rikk Agnew. “All By Myself.” (Frontier). 1982. A founding member of the on-again, off-again Adolescents, Agnew left the band in 1982 and, as the title indicates, wrote the songs, sang and played most of the instruments for his first (and still only) solo album. The album traces the evolution of one who, like Social D’s Mike Ness, rebelled in excelsis against the stifling conformity he found in suburban Orange County. Agnew, too, discovered that route could literally be a dead-end, a revelation that figures prominently in this striking commentary drawn from his experiences crawling around behind the dusty folds of the Orange Curtain.

9. “Swamp Zombies.” (Dr. Dream). 1988. The first time I saw this trio, in an opening slot at Safari Sam’s in Huntington Beach, I thought it was a cute-but-forgettable novelty act with a great name. But the musical raggedness quickly disappeared, and as this debut album shows, the band’s quirky amalgam of traditional folk with nouveau beatnik-with-a-wink attitude holds up well to repeated listenings.

10. Blue Trapeze. “Who Were You Then.” (Fullspeak). 1984. Like U2, Blue Trapeze grappled with weighty matters of spirituality throughout this LP and two subsequent EPs. But unlike U2’s grandiose pronouncements, this Fullerton group’s chief songwriter, Dan Koenig, couched his questions of faith in down-to-earth details that made them seem a natural outgrowth of everyday life. Though the budget limitations of this session are readily apparent, I chose it over the other two for its haunting, Velvet Underground-like aural atmosphere. Koenig and his wife, drummer Lisa Kline-Koenig, are still playing the local club circuit with Dancing Crows.

JIM WASHBURN:

1. James Harman Band. “Those Dangerous Gentlemens.” (Rhino) 1987.

2. James Harman Band. “Extra Napkins.” (Rivera). 1988. Blues singer Harman and his old band, with twin guitar threats Kid Ramos and the late Hollywood Fats, were arguably one of the world’s greatest live acts, consistently reaching an on-stage abandon and invention that said more about freedom and the American spirit than any 10 rock-star concept albums. The roots-rock hybrid “Those Dangerous Gentlemens” and purist-bent “Extra Napkins” only capture a glimmer of the band’s on-stage brio, but they are far and above the most exciting, life-filled recordings to come out of the county.

3. Ann De Jarnett. “Possessions.” (Dr. Dream). 1988. Of all the young Orange County bands exploring the frontiers of originality, De Jarnett and her group the Falcons returned with the best map. On “Possessions,” the singer-violinist’s lyrics etch highly personal interior landscapes, but they are made accessible by finely crafted music and arrangements that were fully realized while remarkably free of outside influences. Unfortunately the production also crafted some of the life right out of the songs--something only evident when hearing them performed live.

4. El Grupo Sexo. “Mom’s Home.” (Dr. Dream). 1987. Funky, eclectic, irreverent, politically savvy and furiously funny, Sexo was a delightful antithesis to the Yup-condo wasteland that Orange County has become. Their jazz and funk-laced debut, “Mom’s Home,” captured an uneasy blend of dance frenzy, cultural outrage and mortal dread, which seemed an apt response to the decade at hand.

5. Dick Dale. “The Tiger’s Loose.” (Balboa). 1984. On this 1984 live recording from Huntington Beach’s Golden Bear, it’s easy to see why the aging King of the Surf Guitar has a fair number of punks as fans: There’s as much impact and unbridled energy in his playing here as when he defined the form in the early ‘60s.