The Fat Angel Sings

The Paisley Underground wasn’t so much a movement as an intermission between next new things. It was 1981 and punk music had run its course. Labels marketed their prior punk bands as new wave or power pop and the moniker was essentially abandoned to the hardcore kids. Cowpunk was about to happen, but wouldn’t kick off until Rank and File’s debut “Sundown” in 1982, while alt- and college rock were still a few years away. R.E.M. released their first single, “Radio Free Europe,” that year, and their jangly, then-fuzzy sound wasn’t far removed from where the Paisley Underground entered stylistically.

The sound blends roots rock like the Byrds or Buffalo Springfield, giving the guitars a warm ringing jangle, mixed with psychedelic rock elements from noisy, fuzzed-out licks to sonorous bar chord drone, all delivered in a raw, clamorous rumble lifted from ’60s garage rock. 

While some acts resisted the tag, it was useful to have a banner of sort to run under. But it wasn’t a political party so much as a backyard one, full of like-minded souls who would explore some subset of those styles as they emerged from the gate. The “movement” was relatively small. There were six bands basically, and they would literally hang out and barbecue together. 

“We were all out of step with what was going on,” says Dream Syndicate frontman Steve Wynn. Bangles lead guitarist Vicki Peterson agrees. “We were outliers for sure,” she says, “but that was the beauty of finding the community we found.” The thing that bonded The Dream Syndicate, The Bangles, and their fellow travelers in L.A.’s early ‘80s Paisley Underground scene was a passion for two ostensibly opposing influences: ‘60s psychedelia and the headlong rush of punk rock.

At the onset of the ‘80s, New Wave and hardcore ruled Los Angeles clubs, and ‘60s sounds were mostly kicked to the curb. The psych-garage tracks Lenny Kaye curated on Elektra’s historic 1972 “Nuggets” compilation were woefully unhip on the Sunset Strip. But to the blossoming Paisley Underground, the feral, fuzzed-out stomp of bands like The Standells, The Seeds, and The Electric Prunes provided not only a peek at the past but a map to the future. “The first time I heard “Nuggets”, it felt like a validation,” remembers Peterson. “‘OK, see? We’re not crazy, there’s other people here who get this. We’re gonna write these songs that are very guitar-centric, that are garage-bands but like a “Nuggets”–era garage band, blaring harmonies over a very sloppy guitar track.’”

“That was just the Rosetta Stone for me,” says Wynn. “That was the thing that changed everything, going to a record store in Davis and finding a copy of Lenny Kaye’s “Nuggets” compilation for two bucks and hearing all that stuff and going, ‘Oh my God. Wait a second—I like ‘60s music and I like punk rock, That’s my thing.’ And that set me off on everything that followed.”

Wynn had gotten a taste of that same sort of magic from another band of older guys, The Droogs, from whom The Dream Syndicate would eventually poach bassist David Provost. Wynn was working at Rhino Records and keeping his ear to the ground when he heard the inaugural 1981 singles by The Salvation Army (soon to become The Three O’Clock) and The Bangs. “I was actually ordering and stocking the records by the other bands,” he recalls. “It was what I was looking for and wasn’t hearing, this nice mix of ‘60s-style music with the ramshackle punk-type attitude.” Wynn coordinated some of the first shows that brought together The Dream Syndicate, The Bangs, and The Salvation Army, and eventually fellow travellers Rain Parade, Green on Red, and Unclaimed offshoot The Long Ryders. “At that point, it just felt like we found our people,” says Peterson, “we found our tribe.”

“I know it sounds stupid, but a lot of us met at these outdoor barbecues,” Sid Griffin of the Long Ryders said. “We’re all living in the same neighbourhood. We’re all roughly the same age, and we all like ’60s bands: the Beatles, the Stones, the Byrds, the Creation, the Action. I was amazed a lot of these guys knew these bands.”

What’s extraordinary is all of these bands are still active in some way and many have continued to release music. Several have reunited in the past decade and released albums in the past 18 months, including the Long Ryders, Dream Syndicate and Rain Parade, while the Bangles broke up, then reunited 25 years ago and still play periodically. Green on Red’s Dan Stuart and Chuck Prophet continued into solo careers, while The Three O’Clock reunited in 2013 and still play occasionally and have released archival music. 

Dream Syndicate (1982) “The Days Of Wine And Roses”

Arguably the most critically adored of the Paisley Underground bands, Dream Syndicate took their name from one of John Cale’s pre-Velvet Underground projects, signaling one of their biggest influences. There’s a noisy obliqueness to their sound fuelled by the intertwining guitar work of Karl Pecoda and Steve Wynn, which was influenced by the guitar line interplay of Television’s guitarists Richard Lloyd and Tom Verlaine. There’s a ragged grace to their guitar hooks that also recalls Neil Young and Crazy Horse.

There’s something fitting about opening their debut album, “The Days of Wine and Roses”, with this track, which overtly evokes an ending. But it’s also about actively avoiding closure: I really don’t know / ‘Cause I don’t wanna know. That’s a fitting sentiment for a band that kept their musical approach and playing style open-ended. 

An exceptional early ‘80s guitar-powered gem, remastered in full and includes a wealth of unreleased material. The newly expanded 4 CD collection includes tracks from main protagonist Steve Wynn’s earlier combo 15 Minutes, the debut EP, astounding cover renditions (Johnny Cash, Janis Joplin, The Who), recordings of the band’s first ever rehearsal, along with several visceral live concerts from the pre-album era.

“The Days of Wine and Roses” is considered by many critics to be one of the best albums of the early ’80s; because it was released on Ruby Records, a smaller subsidiary of pioneering punk label Slash Records, it took time for word to spread. Wynn also releases solo albums and records with Scott McCaughey (Young Fresh Fellows) and Peter Buck (R.E.M.) in The Baseball Project. Dream Syndicate released “Ultraviolet Battle Hymns and True Confessions” in 2022.

Despite the twin pillars of punk and psychedelia as their starting points, the Paisley Undergrounders were a fairly disparate lot. The Dream Syndicate covered tunes like Bob Dylan’s “Outlaw Blues” and Buffalo Springfield’s “Mr. Soul,” but they were probably the least ‘60s-sounding of the bunch. Their dreams were the dangerous kind, with bassist Kendra Smith and drummer Dennis Duck creating a post-punky trebuchet to launch Wynn and lead guitarist Karl Precoda’s feedback-and-fuzz assault. The band was a feral beast you didn’t dare turn your back on.

By 1984, The Dream Syndicate and The Bangles had both graduated to the major labels, with “Medicine Show” on A&M and “All Over the Place” on Columbia, respectively. The Rain Parade would get there the following year with “Crashing Dream” on Island Records.

The Bangles (1984)

“The Dream Syndicate were my revelation in those days,” says Peterson, “because there was such a freedom in what they were doing. Whatever you expected, they were going to do the opposite. I took a lot of inspiration from that, watching Karl Precoda play in those earliest shows, watching him just wail and make noise. Before that, I was like, ‘Do I have to be [L.A. session guitarist] Waddy Wachtel and be perfect? I’ll never be perfect.’ But it was just like, ‘Fuck it, just do it, hit that chord and let it ring and see what happens.’ It was very liberating to me.”

Within a couple of years of The Bangs and The Salvation Army becoming The Bangles and The Three O’Clock, their albums began to boast more elaborate arrangements. But in the Paisley Underground days, Wynn attests, “We were looking for something a little more trashed out and broken and raw. I always say people who think they understand what the Three O Clock and The Bangles were about, if you could go back in time and see a Salvation Army or Bangs show, it would blow your mind. They were just rough and ready in all the best ways.” Looking back at The Salvation Army’s debut 45, “Mind Gardens,” Wynn observes, “It was more punk rock than Mamas and the Papas. They sounded like an uptempo Husker Du more than anything.”

When they were still The Bangs, Peterson, her sister Debbi, and Susanna Hoffs were sharing bills with the likes of Black Flag and Social Distortion. But it was a slightly older, garage-tastic gang called The Unclaimed that blew their minds when they played a gig together in Santa Monica. “They were playing things like ‘Little Girl,’ [a “Nuggets” track by] Syndicate of Sound, things that nobody else was doing then—so ‘unhip,’ as it were. And we were just completely entranced and made friends with them.”

The Bangles put sweet vocal harmonies and a ’60s pop vibe into a blender with garage rock and punk and pressed every button, ending up with something instantly accessible and unstoppably exciting. Whether they were playing their own tunes or revving up a “Nuggets” classic like The Seeds’s “You’re Pushing Too Hard,” nobody ever mistook them for New Wavers. “We probably avoided that by being so ‘60s-centric and presenting as a garage band,” says Peterson, “we were not a tight, sixteenth-note kind of a band.”

The Bangles were sort of the spunky younger sister of the Go Go’s, but with a gruffer, garage rock swagger. Like the Go-Go’s, everyone contributed and sang, but the label screwed with the band’s chemistry by narrowing their attentions on Susanna Hoffs , and favouring her songs for the singles. The girls shared a love of ’60s garage-psych and British Invasion bands; they were huge music nerds like the boys. And naturally there were all these cross-connections; for example, Hoffs’ brother John was best friends with Rain Parade guitarist David Roback.

“Hero Takes a Fall” is not only a great early track for the Bangles, it led to Prince collaborating with the band on its first big hit, “Manic Monday.” “[It] was one of those breakthrough songs for us,” Hoffs said. “It’s the song that Prince heard and was like, ‘What band is this? I like it.’ The song really encapsulates sisters Vicki and Debbi Patterson, and my love of ’60s music and … sort of psychedelic pop: The Seeds, Arthur Lee, Love, the Beau Brummels, the Blues Magoos, the Troggs.”

When they showed up on those shabby stages, the bands of the Paisley Underground often lived up to their name. “I have definitely seen Steve wearing paisley shirts,” reports Peterson, “and the same with the Three O Clock. We all shopped at thrift shops, and we were wearing things from the ‘60s that we sourced from second hand stores. I found a pair of go-go boots that I wore until they literally fell apart, and I taped them up with gaffer’s tape. We had a friend who owned a very cool kind of punk shop on Melrose Avenue, a clothing shop. They actually made a couple of dresses for us. We were wearing miniskirts all the time, or tight trousers with crazy patterns. Furry vests, fringed vests—‘60s fashion was very important.”

The Long Ryders (1985)

The Long Ryders and Green on Red ultimately emerged as the scene’s cowpunk contingent. Sid Griffin then of The Unclaimed kicked off the former to pursue his vision of blending garage and punk flavours with the “cosmic country” side of the ‘60s SoCal scene that traded Nehru jackets for Nudie suits (Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, Flying Burrito Bros, Michael Nesmith). Steve Wynn briefly played in an embryonic version of the band before their line-up fully gelled.

Guitarists Sid Griffin and Stephen McCarthy keyed the Long Ryders’ sound, settling on a blend of Gram Parsons/Flying Burrito Brothers country with a gruff garage attitude, or as Griffin described it, “The Byrds, but pissed off.” The punk came out in the lyrics that were appropriately anti-corporate and progressive in tone, and together formed an early blueprint for the basics of the Americana sound.

According to Griffin, the band was particularly victimized by an executive at their label who thought guitar bands were over. Acting on his steadfast belief, he cancelled the order of albums to support the single’s release. Naturally the single got off to a nice start, getting airplay at college radio and into rotation on MTV, but then there were no records in the stores.

“There was like a three-week gap in the market where you couldn’t buy it, so we were just dead in the water,” said Griffin, who blamed the departure of the A&R guy that signed them. “The next people, they don’t care about you, because you’re someone else’s. They just say, ‘Well, this is Fred’s signing, not mine, what does it have to do with me?’”

Green On Red (1985)

Green on Red started out in Tucson as The Serfers before hightailing it to L.A. in time for the Paisley boom. Their early releases (including an EP on Wynn’s Down There Records) were solidly in the neo garage/psych vein, but by the time of their second album, “Gas Food Lodging”, they had shifted to a country-tinged, Neil Young-indebted brand of ragged-but-right roots rock.

Wynn had a hand in helping True West get off the ground, too. The band was psychedelic enough to make a stinging cover of Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd banger “Lucifer Sam” their first single, but they eventually graduated to more of a “desert rock” vibe. “Their big influence was Television,” says onetime True West drummer Steve Emerson (née Packenham), “After that it was a mix of early Pink Floyd, Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Yardbirds, etc.”

Wynn recalls, “Russ [Tolman, guitar] and Gavin Blair, vocals and I had been bandmates in Davis when we [and Kendra Smith] were in The Suspects a few years before. They asked me to produce their first EP, and it was a natural fit—in some ways, they were the closest to the sound of the Dream Syndicate, and my main input was to keep telling them to turn up their guitars. And, of course, to toss some of my own modal guitar wandering into one of the songs. I just couldn’t resist joining the party.”

The Long Ryders and Green on Red ultimately emerged as the scene’s cowpunk contingent. Sid Griffin of The Unclaimed kicked off the former to pursue his vision of blending garage and punk flavours with the “cosmic country” side of the ‘60s SoCal scene that traded Nehru jackets for Nudie suits (Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, Flying Burrito Bros, Michael Nesmith). Steve Wynn briefly played in an embryonic version of the band before their line-up fully gelled.

Green on Red came to Los Angeles from Tucson, Arizona, after singer/guitarist Dan Stuart fled the state following a smash-and-grab robbery to supply himself with a guitar and amp. (And he successfully avoided jail time!) While distinctive from the start, due in part to Chris Cacavas’ woozy organ sound, the addition of guitarist Chuck Prophet prior to their second full-length album, “Gas Food Lodging“, took them to another level. 

“When I saw Green On Red, it’s hard for me to really describe just how wildly fresh they were at the time. They had songs, you know, that were narrative, story songs,” Prophet recalled. “They were playing some open chords on guitar and you could hear the words, but now on top of the elements, it was charismatic in some way that really kind of blew my mind. When they asked me to join, I didn’t hesitate.”

This track from the aforementioned album captures that moment’s road-weary-but-impassioned vibe, as Stuart sings, Guess I’ll just be poor for the rest of my life / It’s better than giving up the fight / That’s what dreams were made for.

Rain Parade (1983)

Some of the guitar tones share common DNA with Dream Syndicate. After releasing their 1983 debut, “Emergency Third Rail Power Trip“, guitarist David Roback left Rain Parade to form Opal with Dream Syndicate bassist Kendra Smith and drummer Keith Mitchell. When Smith left Opal after a show in Providence, Rhode Island, Roback replaced her with his friend Hope Sandoval, ultimately changing the band’s name to Mazzy Star. A few years later they released “Fade Into You,” a slow builder that became a hit almost a year after its release.

The Rain Parade made the most limpid, yearning sound of the pack. Roback brothers David (on guitar) and Steven (on bass) had been in late ‘70s band The Unconscious with Brentwood neighbour and future Bangle Susanna Hoffs before the Parade began in ‘81. With the Robacks and guitarist Matt Piucci all contributing vocals and songwriting, Rain Parade seemed to answer the question, “What would it sound like if the circa-’66 Byrds and Beatles were transported to the early ‘80s Sunset Strip?” Steven’s gently tumbling basslines and the guitars’ mix of sweet tintinnabulation and trippy prestidigitation helped make the band the real psychedelic sorcerers of the crew.

Piucci reunited Rain Parade a decade ago, and in August they dropped their third album and first release in 37 years, “Last Days of a Dying Sun“, to very favourable reviews.

The Three O’Clock

The Salvation Army, who were reportedly forced to find a new moniker by the famous Christian charity organization of the same name and became The Three O’Clock, were the cabal’s biggest psych revivalists. Early on, they sounded like they had stepped out of “Nuggets” and added some punky propulsion, with Michael Quercio’s puckish tenor and Mike Mariano’s technicolour keyboards coming more to the fore as they eventually pushed in a poppier direction. “They were more meticulous,” remembers Peterson, “all great players, really specifically painting a picture that was targeted and beautiful. With the Farfisa organ, with Michael’s singing being perfectly pseudo-Anglican. A kid from the South Bay, he sounded like a kid from Manchester. I just thought they were fantastic.”

The punchy, almost power pop approach of The Three O’Clock fits nicely alongside The Plimsouls, The Shoes and even R.E.M. Their songs were catchy and they quickly ascended the musical ladder, going from small indie Frontier Records for their 1983 debut, “16 Tambourines“, to major-associated indie IRS Records for their next two albums. They were signed to Prince’s major label subsidiary, Paisley Park, for their final album, “Vermillion”, which also featured popsmith Jason Falkner (Jellyfish) on guitar. The band broke up afterward, though they reunited in 2013. The only “original” music they’ve released was taking part in Yep Roc’s 2018 paisley underground “3X4” release, in which The Three O’Clock, Bangles, Dream Syndicate, and Rain Parade each cover one of each other’s songs.

When Salvation Army/Three O’Clock singer Michael Quercio casually dropped the words “paisley underground” at a Sunset Blvd. Denny’s during a late ‘82 L.A. Weekly interview, the term went viral, and the scene had a name. Unlike a lot of musical movements that get defined from the outside and whose participants never really claim a connection, the Paisley Underground was a true community, embraced by its participants even today. “We were a very well-defined scene,” says Peterson. “We were friends, we played together, we hung out together, and we were just in love with each other.” Wynn concurs, “It was a very legitimate, real moment where a bunch of bands came together and created something maybe bigger than themselves.”

Prince remained connected enough to his Paisley kin that in 1988 his Paisley Park label released The Three O’Clock’s “Vermillion“, which included the Prince-penned “Neon Telephone” and guest appearances by The Revolution’s Wendy & Lisa.

In the beginning, at least, the grittier the venue, the better it suited the bands. An early favourite was Cathay De Grande, where Wynn had worked as a DJ. “It was kind of a trashy, punky, raw place,” he recalls. “We didn’t have to shine things up too much to play there.”

“It was a basement club,” says Peterson, “it was kind of our version of the Cavern Club, because it was just a sweaty, hideous, low-ceilinged basement of a Chinese restaurant—absolutely horrible. It was a gathering spot for sure, right in the heart of Hollywood.” Gloriously grimy spots like The Music Machine and Club 88 had just the right punky vibe, too. “Those were also sweaty, horrible clubs, but a little less so. We’d all be on the same bill at those clubs. Those nights were great, we just felt like, ‘We’re not playing the same stuff, but we’re all in the same camp.’”

True West

There were enough bands on the fringes of the scene that, in retrospect, core members of the Underground have coined the term “Paisley-adjacent” for them. Game Theory, for instance, blended power pop, New Wave, and psych pop in a fashion that could’ve made them second cousins to The Three O’Clock. “I knew [bandleader] Scott Miller really well before all that in college,” says Wynn. “When they came along, they opened a few shows for us, and I was very encouraging of them. I was a fan of Scott’s music back in 1980 when I heard his first single with [earlier incarnation] Alternate Learning. I just couldn’t believe how good this guy was—a wild, mad genius.” Later, Michael Quercio became Game Theory’s bassist for a bit.

The Pandoras, featuring future Muffs singer Kim Shattuck, didn’t start until the Underground was already bubbling up, but in their early phase, they were the ultimate garage-psych fetishists, with a sound and image that was as 1966 as they could make it without resorting to some Back to the Future-type shenanigans. “They came sort of later in the game,” Peterson confirms, “but I think they have a claim.” Wynn recalls, “They were a very ‘60s band and pretty exciting and raw and punky.”

The Pandoras, a band best known for its 1960s garage-rock-inspired songs and attitude, are back after a 25-year hiatus. After a vibrant Facebook group revealed a feisty underground fanbase, The Pandoras got together to hang out and jam. One thing led to another, and they realized they could put on an amazing live show. The band had a successful headlining tour in Europe in 2015 and more recently, played shows with The Bangles and Flamin’ Groovies. Although The Pandoras’ lead singer/songwriter, Paula Pierce, died of an aneurysm in 1991, her music, bandmates, and fans are carrying on her legacy.

 the Pandoras: were Kim Shattuck (The Pandoras, The Muffs, The Pixies): Doing Paula’s job with lead vocals, screams, and lead guitar, Melanie Vammen (The Pandoras, The Muffs, The Leaving Trains): On Vox organ, harmonica, tambourine, and backing vocals, Karen Basset (The Pandoras, The Rebel Pebbles): Taking over on bass and harmony vocals, Hillary Burton (The Pandoras, honeychain): Drums and backing vocals

The band has recorded an EP’s worth of Pierce-penned songs and covers; it was produced by Kim Shattuck and engineered by Grammy-award-winning Chris Dugan.

By the first months of 1982, the underground was already peeking overground. “Within four, five months, we were all making our first EPs for big indie labels and playing the Whisky a Go Go and stuff like that,” recalls Wynn. “The Rodney Bingenheimer [radio] show, Rodney on the ROQ, on KROQ, was a big thing for all of us. Rodney was very supportive of our scene. Rodney was coming from a place of loving ‘60s music and punk rock, so he just said, ‘Yeah, this is my thing!’”

“It didn’t take long,” says Peterson. “The Dream Syndicate, they went from their first rehearsal to their first record in a very short time, and that record became an absolute fan favourite. The Bangs, we played quite often in L.A., we got some good luck with press right away.”

No golden moment lasts forever, and as quickly as the scene grew, it started fragmenting. The bands all pursued their distinct destinies, drifting apart musically and geographically. “The Dream Syndicate grew very quickly in popularity, and they went out on the road before we did,” explains Peterson. “So now they’re not around. Then we got signed to a label, we were in a studio, and we were immediately out on the road, and I felt like I didn’t come back to Los Angeles for almost nine years. I didn’t know what was happening in L.A. Same thing with The Three O’Clock—they went on their adventure; they connected with Prince. Everyone had their own trajectory within a very short time. There was a beautiful, bright, sweet spot where we were all in town and we were all playing together, but that didn’t last terribly long.”

By the time the ‘90s rolled around, the bands had all broken up. But every pendulum swings back around eventually. In December 2013, the core four played a brace of benefit shows together that eventually inspired them to record a sort of sequel to “Rainy Day“. 1984 also delivered one of the scene’s most beloved artifacts, “Rainy Day”, which featured the core four joining together to reinvent tunes by the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, The Velvet Underground, and The Beach Boys.

This time, they covered each other instead of their inspirations, and 2018’s “3×4” proved that the Paisley Underground story’s final chapter remained unwritten.

Fantastic round-robin by four leaders of the Paisley Underground sound taking a crack at each other’s songs. “3 x 4” a celebration of L.A.’s Paisley Underground scene of the 1980s featuring four of the scene’s most notorious bands each covering the songs of the others – four bands covering three songs each – “3 x 4” get it? The bands are The Bangles, The Three O’Clock, The Dream Syndicate and Rain Parade. These are brand new 2018 recordings.

There has been a gradual snowball effect as the scene slowly came surging back into the public consciousness. In 2017, the reunited Dream Syndicate released the first of several new albums. The Long Ryders’ reunion album, “Psychedelic Country Soul”, came out in 2019, with guests including the Peterson sisters. Omnivore Records unveiled an expanded reissue of The Salvation Army’s “Mind Gardens” seven-inch in 2021.

David Roback, who later formed Opal with Kendra Smith and then found fame as half of Mazzy Star, sadly passed in 2020; but The Rain Parade came roaring back with “Last Rays of a Dying Sun” in 2023, around the same time the Dream Syndicate documentary “How Did We Find Ourselves Here?” premiered. Wynn published his memoir, I Wouldn’t Say It If It Wasn’t True, the following year, and 2025 brought both the authorized Bangles biography The Eternal Flame and Peterson’s duo album with husband John Cowsill, “Long After the Fire”.

In the end, Wynn looks back on the scene’s salad days with love. “I have great memories of it,” he says. “We were all united in that camaraderie and very friendly competition and inspiration. I’m glad we had each other; it was a really great moment.”

“I think it was something really special,” says Peterson. “I just feel lucky that we were there and that we found each other. It felt like a revelation. You have that moment like, ‘I’m not alone.’ And we were absolutely not alone.”