‘Finest City’s’ Finest Bands : Insider Choices: On This Rock San Diego’s Reputation Rests

In a recent article in The Times’ Sunday Calendar section, rock critic Robert Hilburn reported the findings of a survey of 34 pop industry insiders who were asked to name the best rock band ever to come out of Los Angeles.

The winner: the Doors, followed by the Beach Boys, the Eagles, and the Byrds.

To get a ranking of the best rock groups to emerge from San Diego, Calendar contacted 12 pop industry insiders in America’s Finest City and asked them to name the band they consider San Diego’s best ever.

Is it:

--The Beat Farmers, current “roots-rock” champions whose music is a sparse blend of old-time country, rockabilly, and rock ‘n’ roll? The band is the latest rage in England, where one critic hailed them as “the next Beatles.”

--Iron Butterfly, the hard-rock quintet credited with defining the heavy metal genre with their earsplitting 1968 mega-hit, “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida?” Lillian Roxon’s Rock Encyclopedia calls Iron Butterfly “the original heavy metal Cro-Magnons (whose) low-browed, jutting-jawed sound conjured up visions of steamer trunks being dropped down several flights of stairs.”

--Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper, the saucy duo that for the last six years have been at the forefront of rock’s new underground? Talkin’ bluesman Nixon and his washboard strumming sidekick poke fun at everything from religion and politics to urine-testing and the Elvis Presley mystique. Earlier this year, Nixon appeared in a series of MTV promotional spots.

--Gary Puckett and the

Union Gap, who scored five Top 10 hits in the late 1960s with such romantic ballads as “Young Girl” and “Lady Willpower?” The one-time house band at the Quad Room (now the Alamo) nightclub in Clairemont sold more records in 1968 than any other pop act in the world, including the Beatles.

Or is it Ratt, the Cascades, the Monroes, or Rosie and the Originals?

And the winner is . . . Iron Butterfly, followed by the Beat Farmers, Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper, and Gary Puckett and the Union Gap.

In voting for Iron Butterfly, program director Ted Edwards of album-rock radio station KGB-FM (101.5) applauded the group for producing one of the rock era’s most instantly recognizable songs.

“If you play just three or four chords of ‘In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida’ to anyone on this planet,” Edwards said, “they’ll immediately know what it is, and who did it.”

“No matter how hard you try, you simply can’t escape ‘In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida,’ ” added Bob White, a former sales and marketing representative with Polygram Records.

What constitutes a city’s “greatest ever” rock band?

In both the Los Angeles and the San Diego polls, panelists were left to define that term for themselves. Some of the judges, each of whom was asked to vote for five bands, felt musical influence was the deciding factor. Others selected bands with a strong hometown identity. A few panelists said they considered how many hits a band had. Several voted strictly on personal taste.

On a scoring system that gave 5 points for every first-place vote and 4-3-2-1 for second through fifth place votes, Iron Butterfly outscored No. 2 Beat Farmers 50 points to 36. Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper finished third with 25 points, just one point ahead of Gary Puckett and the Union Gap.

Far behind:

Ratt (15 points), a heavy metal band from Clairemont that sold millions of records in the mid-’80s, mostly to head-banging teen-agers. Their second and third albums, 1984’s “Out of the Cellar” and 1985’s “Invasion of Your Privacy,” each peaked at No. 7 on Billboard’s Top 200 LPs chart.

Rosie and the Originals (11 points), a “one-hit wonder” whose maudlin ballad “Angel Baby” topped the charts in 1960. The song was written and sung by Rosie Hamlin of National City. Rock historians credit Rosie and the Originals with creating the “girl group” sound of the early ‘60s that was subsequently popularized by the likes of the Shirelles and the Ronettes.

The Cascades (9 points), another one-hit wonder whose mellow rocker, “Rhythm of the Rain,” became the nation’s No. 3 song in January of 1963.

Rounding out the top 10: The Funky Kings (5 points), a country-rock group from the mid-’70s that was fronted by Jack Tempchin, who wrote several hits for the Eagles and Glenn Frey; Longbranch Pennywhistle (5 points), an obscure nightclub band from the late ‘60s that launched the careers of Frey and J. D. Souther; and the Tom Waits Band (4 points), another late-’60s bar band whose raspy-voiced singer went on to become one of the most critically acclaimed songwriters of the ‘70s and early ‘80s.

Of the local Calendar panel’s 12 members, seven gave first place to Iron Butterfly.

“This is not exactly the response you’d expect to hear from a former rock critic, but I think their impact in the late 1960s was to pave the way for two decades of heavy metal music,” said Kenny Weissberg, who now promotes the annual Concerts by the Bay series at Humphrey’s on Shelter Island.

“Iron Butterfly made a bigger impression on rock ‘n’ roll than any other San Diego band,” added Larry Farkas, co-owner of the Off the Record stores in East San Diego and Encinitas. “Everybody knows ‘In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida’; it’s one of those songs that will be around forever.”

The Beat Farmers was the first-place choice of two nightclub owners: Dave Hodges of the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach, and Bob Speth of the Bacchanal in Kearny Mesa.

“They’re at the forefront of this whole American ‘roots-rock’ trend,” Hodges said. “And on top of that, their drummer, Country Dick Montana, is the father of San Diego’s new music scene. He’s had a big impact through his earlier roles in the Penetrators, the Crawdaddys, and Country Dick and the Snugglebunnies.”

“The Beat Farmers are one of the very few bands to cross all lines,” Speth added. “The people who come in to see them are very diverse in their tastes; some are into country, some are into rock, some are into pop.”

Concert promoter David Swift of Avalon Attractions feels Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper are San Diego’s greatest rock band ever.

“They are to kids of today what Bob Dylan and the Jefferson Airplane were to kids of the 1960s,” Swift said.

Former concert promoter Marc Berman puts Gary Puckett and the Union Gap in the No. 1 spot.

“They sold more records than any other San Diego band,” said Berman, now a live-music consultant to the Showtime and MTV cable-television networks. “And when I was going to high school in Los Angeles, everyone knew Gary Puckett and the Union Gap were from San Diego; they had a strong San Diego identity--unlike, say, Iron Butterfly, who for all I knew, could have been from Guam.”

The “San Diego identity” question prompted KGB’s Ted Edwards to put Ratt at the bottom, even though they sold more records than any San Diego band except Gary Puckett and the Union Gap.

“One of the marks against them is that, although they’re from San Diego, they claim to be an L.A. band,” Edwards said.

The results, with first place votes in parentheses:

1. Iron Butterfly, 50 points (7)

2. Beat Farmers, 36 (2)

3. Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper, 25 (1)

4. Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, 24 (1)

5. Ratt, 15

6. Rosie and the Originals, 11

7. Cascades, 9

8. Funky Kings, 5

9. Longbranch Pennywhistle, 5 (1)

10. Tom Waits Band, 4

Also nominated: the Penetrators (2 points), the Monroes (1 point), and David Bradley and the Maniac Band (1 point).

The Panelists: Bill Silva, concert promoter, Bill Silva Presents; Ted Edwards, program director, album-rock radio station KGB-FM (101.5), Kenny Weissberg, concert promoter, Humphrey’s Concerts by the Bay series; Jerry Herrera, owner of the Spirit nightclub in Bay Park; Harlan Schiffman, manager/concert promoter, Fine Line Entertainment; Bob White, former sales and marketing representative, Polygram Records; Larry Farkas, co-owner of Off the Record retail stores in East San Diego and Encinitas; Bob Speth, owner of the Bacchanal nightclub in Kearny Mesa; Dave Hodges, owner of the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach; David Swift, concert promoter, Avalon Attractions; Marc Berman, music consultant, MTV and Showtime. Malcolm Falk, manager/booking agent, Falk and Morrow Talent.