O.C. POP MUSIC REVIEW : Original T.S.O.L. Band’s Reunion Show Packs Nostalgia, Lacks Focus

Steve Soto, who knows a few things about Orange County punk rock, sat in the upper rows of the Celebrity Theatre Friday night, surveying the house a few minutes before the original members of T.S.O.L. were about to go on stage together for the first time since 1983.

“This is our high school reunion,” said Soto, who was co-founder of Agent Orange and the Adolescents, two of the leading bands that came out of the Orange County punk rock explosion of 1979-80. Then Soto said something else: “There’s money in punk-rock rehash.”

That pretty much explained why the show was taking place. And the high school reunion aspect had a lot to with why a near-capacity crowd (2,279 paid, according to promoter Gary Tovar of Goldenvoice Presents) had turned out to see it.

Other bands from the Orange County punk wave wrote songs that were better and more melodic than the original T.S.O.L., and some groups had more staying power. But T.S.O.L. (True Sounds of Liberty) built a reputation as the most sensational, tempestuous and unpredictable live act of the local punk scene during the early ‘80s.

The reunion brought out some younger fans who never had seen the band before--like Christina Palmer, a 15-year-old from San Bernardino County who was scrounging change outside the theater before the show to raise the price of a ticket. She said that her interest in T.S.O.L. had been handed down from an older generation of punkers, an aunt and uncle now in their 20s and 30s.

Robert Mora, a tall, hulking punk rock fan from Hollywood, said he used to go see the original T.S.O.L. in Los Angeles when he was barely in his teens. Mora, 20, grumbled about how he could get in for as little as $1 to $5 in those days, compared to the $20 he had paid to see T.S.O.L.’s reunion. “For all the money they’re getting, they’d better have a lot of energy,” he said.

As it turned out, T.S.O.L. had enough energy to get by, but not enough focus or group cohesiveness to infuse the show with much beyond nostalgia value.

Bassist Mike Roche (who came out wearing a top hat and red bandanna on his head and a skull mask on his face) kept up a fast, rumbling pulse along with drummer Todd Barnes, but the rhythm section only occasionally kicked the beat to a surging peak.

Guitarist Ron Emory generated the most musical excitement of the bunch, consistently churning out raw, slashing riffs and solos that often took on a charged rockabilly edge reminiscent of Billy Zoom’s work during the punk heyday of X. Emory, now a member of Lunchbox, captured the roaring spirit of punk rock with his one lead vocal of the night, spitting out convincing scorn for authority during “Die for Me.” Emory and lead singer Jack Grisham also raised some effective punk ire with their call-and-response screams on one thrashing number.

Unfortunately, that was the only truly interactive moment of the 50-minute show. For the most part, Roche stayed in the background and Emory played in self-contained, if intense, solitude at stage right, leaving Grisham to caper about in his old role as T.S.O.L.’s ringleader and rabble rouser.

Grisham alluded to the fact that the band hadn’t played together in seven years, but there wasn’t a flicker of warmth and sentiment between these old cronies. No smiles exchanged, no pinball-style physical contact between players (always helpful for a punk show), not even an introduction of the band members or a mutual bow at the end.

The old personal animosities that split the band apart didn’t surface, but the four T.S.O.L. alumni appeared only to have contrived a truce for business purposes, not a reconciliation born of rediscovered fondness for the good old days and each other. Still, this aloofness was better and more true to the take-us-as-we-are punk ethic than a feigned camaraderie would have been.

The concert wound up being mainly a vehicle for Grisham, the big, lithe, naturally charismatic front man who spent the show moving about in graceful, loping strides. Grisham, who now leads the hard rock band Tender Fury, doesn’t have an exceptionally rangy or powerful voice, but he hammed it up with the theatrical, half-crooned, half-spoken vocals that distinguished T.S.O.L. from its more snarling hard-core punk competitors.

The 15 or so songs that T.S.O.L. performed all were drawn from the two EPs and two albums the original band released during its original run from 1980 to 1983. One of the early T.S.O.L.’s virtues was its willingness to experiment with musical styles. The band changed with each recording, and that paid off in its reunion by allowing for a variety of tone--a rarity among punk rockers. There were thrashing, politically oriented songs that railed at authority, the lighter, more melodic approach of the reggae-inflected “Word Is,” the disgusting but funny necrophiliac fantasy of “Code Blue” and textured melodrama on songs like “The Triangle,” with its spy story full of paranoia, and the stormily romantic “Wash Away.” Most of the songs came off as grist for Grisham’s performance, rather than as deeply felt expression in which the song itself mattered more than the singer.

Grisham has said he got into punk rock as a teen-ager because he saw it as an outlet for his adolescent delight in all-purpose hell-raising. His instigator’s streak surfaced at the Celebrity, as he egged on an already tumultuous crowd to leap over a wooden barrier and on to the stage. The many who tried didn’t fare very well: a cordon of linebacker-size security men would grasp each would-be stage crasher in a bear hug and hustle the intruder out of the auditorium. But if the aim of singer and audience was to recreate the tumult of the good old days of punk, they pretty much succeeded.

(Whether out of savvy, instinct, or blind luck, Grisham picked just the right moment to stall the show and let emotions subside at the point when the turbulence in front of the stage threatened to get out of hand. He did so by taking off his shoes and promising to perform naked. But Grisham, stripped to the waist through most of the show, managed to keep his leather tights and codpiece in place for the remainder of the concert).

The biggest surprise of the show was Grisham’s announcement from the stage that what was to have been a one-time reunion will have a sequel Tuesday night at Raji’s nightclub in Hollywood. That show will be recorded for a live album (Peter Heur, president of Triple X Records, said the second show was arranged to avoid a $2,500 fee that the Celebrity Theatre required to record Friday night’s concert).

The decision to do a live album, which Heur said will be a joint release by Triple X and Enigma Records, will have consequences for Mike Roche. Until now, Roche had been the last original member of T.S.O.L. still playing with the second-generation version of T.S.O.L., which has continued to tour and record since 1984 while phasing out punk music in favor of a blues-rock and heavy-metal slant. Roche’s partners in the current T.S.O.L., Joe Wood and Mitch Dean, had consented to his playing Friday’s reunion only after much internal haggling that threatened to split the band. The current members said they aren’t going to stand for Roche taking part in a reunion album as well, and Roche said in a post-show interview that he is being ousted from T.S.O.L. as a result.

“They said if I do this record I’m out of the band,” Roche said. “I’m doing the show (at Raji’s). If it is so bitter and they want to replace me, I don’t want to play with them any more. We can’t keep riding the merry-go-round.” Roche said he is considering legal action either to prevent Wood and Dean from continuing to use the name T.S.O.L., or to gain financial compensation for use of the name he says he originated.

Wood confirmed Saturday that the current T.S.O.L. was planning to perform Saturday night in Montclair with a new bass player, Dave Mello. “I have the ideal band. I’m happy,” Wood said, dismissing the notion that Roche has more claim to the T.S.O.L. name than he and Dean.

Wood has maintained that Roche’s personal problems, more than the tension over the original T.S.O.L.’s reunion, have undermined Roche’s position in the band. “If Mike gets his (stuff) together, he’s welcome back (in the current T.S.O.L.). He needs to get his priorities lined up.”