Punk Rock Returning to S.D. With Ramones

It was back in the middle 1970s when the sound and the fury of punk rock was first unleashed by the Sex Pistols in England and, simultaneously, by the Ramones in the United States.

The sound was the same: a chain-saw attack of bass, guitars and drums that carved up the bloated body of rock ‘n’ roll until nothing was left but the skeleton.

The fury, however, was different. In England, it was directed toward society: a sinking economy and high unemployment, particularly among youth. In the United States, it was directed toward music: the languid, overblown “progressive” rock of such bands as Yes and Emerson, Lake and Palmer.

Today, more than a decade later, the Sex Pistols are nothing more than a fuzzy memory--perhaps because social statements, however furious, are no sooner made than forgotten.

The Ramones, on the other hand, are still plugging away, both in the recording studio and on the road--perhaps because musical statements, once made, tend to be repeated over and over again until somebody listens.

The four hulking Neanderthals from Forest Hills, N.Y., have just released a two-record “best of” set, appropriately titled “Mania.” And their current national tour in support of that album will bring them to San Diego on Thursday night for a concert at the Bacchanal in Kearny Mesa.

Has time quieted the sound and tempered the fury of the Ramones? After all, in recent years they’ve made several attempts to join the musical establishment by scoring the sound track to the film, “Rock ‘n’ Roll High School,” and by recording a pair of albums with noted pop producers Phil Spector and Graham Gouldman.

“Uh, no,” says bassist Dee Dee Ramone. “We’re still the same as we were when we first started out. We have the same passion for simple, basic rock ‘n’ roll, and we’re against the same kind of music, the pretty-boy rock of all those synthesizer bands, as we were back then.”

Indeed. Aside from occasional detours into the pop mainstream that Dee Dee Ramone now looks back upon as “mistakes,” the Ramones have pretty much stuck to the path of punk-rock righteousness over the course of 12 years and 10 albums.

Their hyper-driven three-chord, single-key garage rock is a cacophonous blend of volcanic bass, guitar, and drum bashings and snarling vocals. It’s packaged into songs that average less than two minutes in length, with titles like “Blitzkrieg Bop,” “Beat on the Brat,” and “Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment.”

As a result, Dee Dee Ramone said, commercial success is still very much an impossible dream.

“Punk rock is no more acceptable today than it was in the middle 1970s,” he said. “The music business continues to be controlled by the record companies, the radio stations, and MTV, and they’re all afraid of punk rock--they just don’t want it.”

San Diegans this week have four chances to see in concert Uncle Festive, one of the hottest young pop-jazz bands in the country.

The first one’s a freebie: The Los Angeles quartet will perform on its own tonight at the Bacchanal. The three others will set you back either $25 or $32.50, depending on where you sit: Uncle Festive will back pop crooner Barry Manilow Friday through Sunday nights at the Civic Theater downtown.

“All four of us were free-lance musicians when Barry hired us two years ago for his 1986 world tour,” said drummer Bud Harner. “By the time the tour ended, we got along so well we decided to form this group to play for fun until Barry’s next tour began, and everything just snowballed from there.”

Since its humble beginnings, Uncle Festive has released three critically acclaimed albums and spent as much time on the road without Manilow as with him.

“Barry understands that eventually we’re going to leave him and make a go of things on our own,” Harner said. “After all, he did the same back in the early 1970s when he was with Bette Midler. So he’s being very supportive.”

Saturday morning confusion: That’s what San Diegans can expect Saturday at their friendly neighborhood Ticketmaster outlet when tickets go on sale for three upcoming shows: comedian George Carlin, July 30 at the California Theater downtown; maudlin piano man Bruce Hornsby, Aug. 16 at San Diego State University’s Open Air Theater, and veteran country songsmith George Strait, Sept. 3, also at the Open Air Theater.

Saturday night: Also on Saturday, long after the box office is closed, KPBS-TV (Channel 15) will present the premiere episode of “Club Date,” starring jazz trumpet great Freddie Hubbard. The half-hour televised concert, produced by the local Public Broadcasting System affiliate and underwritten, in part, by Elario’s nightclub in La Jolla, will start at 10 p.m. It will air again at 2:30 p.m. Sunday.

The great (perennially youthful) impostor: Last week, local oldies band Spellbound had just finished performing on the Del Mar Fair’s Calico Stage when a man who looked like and identified himself as Dick Clark, host of television’s “American Bandstand,” approached the group. The man told the band he was at the fair scouting talent and asked for the lead singer’s business card. Hollywood, here they come? Nope. A spokesman in Clark’s Los Angeles offices said the real Eternal Teen-Ager had left for Europe the week before and wasn’t due back until sometime in July.

Stumblin’ in: Saxophonist Al Garth, a former sideman of Loggins and Messina, at the Mandolin Wind nightclub in Hillcrest, where he sat in with local group the Mighty Penguins for two sets of vintage blues.