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Once upon a time, in the previous century to be exact, Ella Black and Mary Rat (Aretha Jefferson) were gogo dancers in Redd Kross. (Except back then, they were Red Cross. They had been The Tourists, which is what you were called if you turned up at the beach with pale skin, but they didn't really wanna be called The U.S. Tourists or whatever.) Then they started singing back-up, then Ella started singing a verse of a song, then a whole song, and then another, so when Dez Cadena (Theotis Gumbo) came along and said, "Let's start a band!", in the way that Mary Tyler Moore begat Rhoda, the Blacks were born, with Redd Kross (Jeff "Tyrone Tonga" ..boards - Ella's Cordovox piano on which the Es tended to all go out - and totally smokin' 12-year-old Steve "Roman" on bass) as back-up. A third female vocalist, Bibi (Mavis), and a female drummer from San Pedro, Lou, completed the line-up. We rehearsed in the Cadena garage, so we called what we did, or tried to do, "garage funk".
Rick Wilder had named Ella (and Aretha), but Jeff had named the band, and Ella, not wanting the responsibility, was constantly trying to change that name, but somehow it stuck. And had absolutely nothing to do with James White and the Blacks. Our first show was at the King's Palace (later Raji's) on Halloween. Apart from the E-less piano playing loudly in the wrong key most of the time, it went well. The next day Ella fled the country, and returned four months later to learn that Bibi had moved back to NYC. Impressed by his gifts of stolen trailer park flamingoes, she rescued fan Brian Grillo from a life of crime and recruited him as the third singer. And Lou, who had picked up our 27 dollars from the King's Palace, was never seen again.
In the first few months we went through drummers faster than Spinal Tap ... Bass players too. Michael Murphy, Mark Stern, Terry Graham, Don Bolles, Oscar Harvey, Jimmy Brat, Rob Graves Ritter ... They all sat in at various times. There were three shows in a row with the 45 Grave personnel, who were amazing - they could play anything. Unfortunately they had other commitments, so Ella and the 45 Black Graves was short-lived. Dez was away on tour with Black Flag at the beginning of the year and Mau-Mau Mike Livingston played guitar for one show, then before and after we were graced with the talents of Mr. Paul Cutler, we had a stable of four guitar players: Dez, Juan Gomez, Jef Levy and Margo - and any of the above who were available would play. We also had an additional singer for a while - De De Troit, and various keyboardists including Joe "Mama" Zinnato and David Wiley.
Still, we were always searching for that elusive solid backline, and one night Aretha told me that Kevin Wood of the Love Butchers played bass, and was looking for a funk band. I accosted him in the parking lot of the Starwood. "Do you play with your fingers?" "Yes." "Do you slap those strings?" "Yes." "You're in!" Kevin unfortunately came with an expensive habit, but he also brought a dependable and solid drummer to the fold, also an ex Love Butcher (and Darby Crash Band), Don Garstang.
We played a couple more months with revolving guitarists, then in December, on the same night as he totalled my car and that my housemate (Darby) died, Michael Livingston agreed to come back to the band. Brendan Mullen (Hal Negro and the Satintones) came on board as our second drummer/percussionist, and finally, we had a solid and stable line-up. Or as stable as one could be with a junkie bass player, but those problems came later ...
tbc
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