Rock and Remembrance

Mashed potatoes, yeah, yeah, oh yeah, etc. . . .

Hot pastrami, yeah, yeah, yeah, etc. . . .

Baby, shake that thing, yeah, yeah, oh yeah, etc. . . .

Baby, one more time, yeah, yeah, yeah, etc. . . .

--the Dartells

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There probably haven’t been too many term papers debating the significance of the lyrics to “Hot Pastrami,” but the relentless riff was good enough to sell a couple of million copies for an Oxnard band, the Dartells, in 1963.

The local music scene was flourishing 35 years ago, a simpler time before the east county became suburbia, before SOAR initiatives, before redevelopment and before freeways and traffic jams.

The Dartells sold the most records by far, but bands such as Howard Deere & the Videls, the Customs, the Mixtures, the Vibrators and crooners such as Fred Kushon packed the local venues, many of which are merely memories today.

Saturday night, many of the same players and club owners who are not memories but want to share a few will hold a reunion concert at the Oxnard Community Center.

Unlikely considering its size, and strange as it may seem, Wagon Wheel Junction was the rock ‘n’ roll center of the universe, because it had so many clubs within walking distance of each other--places such as the Trade Winds, the Carousel, Dapper Dan’s, the Wagon Wheel Restaurant and the Roller Gardens.

Oxnard had T.C. a-Go-Go, a club run by event organizer Elsa Kelly, while Ventura’s party animals gathered at the Stardust and the Sidecar, next door.

Dick Burns, the Dartells’ guitar player, hasn’t quit his night job, and still plays. After the Dartells ran their course, Burns went to South Vietnam on a USO tour, frequently played Hawaii and Reno, did an extended “Love Boat” tour, and produced some music shows for television. During a recent interview, Burns had plenty of Dartells’ stories to tell.

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So what’s this reunion thing going to be like?

I’m looking forward to seeing a lot of old friends who I haven’t seen for a long time. Randy Ray, who was the Dartells’ keyboard player, is coming up from Mission Viejo, and Gary Peeler, the drummer, is coming down from Sacramento. The bass player, Doug Phillips, died 3 1/2 years ago.

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So Wagon Wheel was happening?

Yes, but it was a little shabby. There was the Trade Winds, which is now an RV parking lot, then the Carousel, which is now, I think, a place called Leonardo’s, and the restaurant inside the Wagon Wheel Motel also had entertainment.

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And the Roller Gardens?

That was our stomping grounds. We started playing there regularly in 1962. There was no skating on Saturday nights, when they’d have a sock hop instead. We backed up Jan & Dean, the Four Seasons and lots of others. The Beach Boys played there a couple of times. I remember Jan & Dean crammed three people into a Corvette and drove up there--it would be them with a girl in the middle. I remember the Four Seasons traveled around in a big Continental with all their stuff in the trunk.

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How did the band get started?

We were all friends from high school. They were from the class of ’63 at Hueneme High School, and I graduated from Santa Clara High School in 1961. We all met at a little club called the Teen Club, which was at the Port Hueneme Navy base. Before we became the Dartells, we were the Casuals, then the Valiants and the Thundermen. We started playing the bases a lot after we learned enough songs to play all night.

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What’s the story on “Hot Pastrami”?

We took the song from a Joey Dee & the Starliters album. It was originally called “Mashed Potatoes,” but we changed it to “Hot Pastrami.” It was a regional hit on Arlen Records, a small label from L.A., but then it was picked up on Dot Records.

The A-side was “Dartell Stomp,” and it got some airplay, but then a deejay in Coalinga flipped the record over. The kids liked it, and “Hot Pastrami” took off. It was pretty easy to have a hit record in 1963, but we were still kids. I had been out of high school for two years, but the other guys were still all seniors in high school.

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How many records did the Dartells make?

We released three or four singles and one album, but nothing else after “Hot Pastrami” was a hit. We started playing a lot in San Francisco, Fresno and Albuquerque, but, for some reason, the Dartells were always big in Fresno, and all of our records were hits there. The album is hard to find--I didn’t even have one myself--until someone came in the other night with three of them and gave me one.

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There seems to be lots of food themes in Dartells’ songs.

Well, we did have “Hot Pastrami,” then our manager had us play “Green Onions” backward, and it became “Dill Pickles.” We also had songs called “Swiss Cheese” and “Ice Cream.” We just made a lot of that stuff up in the studio. It was a very flavorful album.

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What about the dress code in those days?

We all used to dress up like the early Beatles. We always wore matching sport coats or matching sweaters with black slacks. We always dressed nice and were always well groomed. Later when the Rolling Stones came along, some people thought it was OK to dress like a scrunge and not take a bath for a month.

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When the Dartells were happening, surf music was still going strong, but the British Invasion hadn’t happened yet.

Yes, and the British Invasion knocked us right off the charts. We used to hear that stuff when we were driving around in our van. That sound totally took off, and the kids were going crazy over that stuff. We had a couple of good years, then faded into obscurity, just like the other one-hit wonders.

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These days, musicians and club owners seem to have more of an adversarial relationship. Was that true then?

We always got along; we were very close. We used to play after hours at the Carousel from 2 until 5 a.m. They’d lock up the booze and serve food and coffee, and everyone would sit around and talk. Things didn’t start to change until the late ‘70s, early ‘80s.

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Where are you playing these days?

I never quit playing, but, these days, people are getting more and more into karaoke. I do three nights a week at Billy O’s in Ventura. Sometimes people want to hear some old stuff, but mostly they come for karaoke.

BE THERE

Musicians’ Reunion Concert at Oxnard Community Center, 800 Hobson Way, Saturday, 7 p.m. to midnight. $15 at the center or at Trueblood’s, 230 E. Main St., Ventura; (805) 649-2918.