Standard and Poor are a culmination of many projects that have been in the works for over 20 years , longer than some of our members have been alive.
Mr. DeVille and lurch spawned their punk rock roots in the bowels of Los Angeles county Bell Garden and South Gate respectively .While attending hundreds of the same great punk shows and having many mutual friends we never became friends or formed a band until much later.
Some how we both escaped the gang violence and the drugs of LA without serving any major jail time or addictions other than alcohol. . Our paths crossed again circa 2004 through our mutual friend and local Inland Empire junk yard owner Fat Frank AKA Pancho. With many of the same musical interests and drunken memories we hit it off immediately I was between bands at the time and saw that Mr. DeVille with his punk/rockabilly style would make the perfect front man.
Fat Frank had a drum kit so we got him to play drums and thanks to Tony Love firing him we got Ray to play bass. We had no guitar player so lurch had to try. This line up made noise for about a year, none of us being very good at our craft except for Ray. Lurch could play bass but not guitar, Frank still needed more practice on the drums and DeVille was still honing his vocal skills.
In the spring of 2007 the unthinkable happened. Fat Frank abandoned the junk business and got a job! ( the junk business had been slow ever since Sanford and son was cancelled from TV Land) This left us without a drummer. We had a basement full of Equipment and no musicians .
A few Saturdays later While sitting on DeVilles porch enjoying our favorite adult beverages and listening to the great Black Randy . A skinny kid on a skateboard came by and said ,” hey what is that shit? I like it ! “ Seeing that he had good musical (who wouldn’t stop for Sperm Bank Baby?) we invited him in for a beer. He introduced himself as Jimmy Chaos and told us he was a guitar player. While leery of the spiky haired kid we needed to make noise so we took him to the basement and handed him a guitar and I switched back to bass .The kid Ripped, but we still needed a drummer.
DeVille said there was a neighborhood kid who could play drums ,but she was in and out of Juvie (California Youth Authority). He went up the street and checked fortunately for us she was out this month. For a small fee of 18 beers and a medium pizza Marie Dammage agreed to play for us. The new line up was complete.
Since late spring we have been working on songs and with the help of our friend Auggie recording a demo. We will start playing parties and shows in mid to late august. Standard and Poor Are both( if you can call punks standard)We all agree on our distrust of all governments current ,past and future, and our love of music of all kinds. Hope see you at a show soon .
Lurch SNP
