Rolling Blackouts borne out

ILLUSTRATION by JOE MCGARRY

“I was borne out of being average because of my rock band,” said D. Boon once, pestered and pissed-off and pushed in an interview, and that is a part of the South Bay SST ethic to revive and admire—not just the built-in DIY anyone-can-do-it but the idea that anyone can do it even better, better than the radio rock and the kids whose Hollywood parents pushed them onstage and the casting-call bands who come pre-installed with chorus and contracts, and although it’s ungentlemanly to pull competition into music, don’t you ever get a little itchy when unstudied public ridiculousness is endlessly rewarded? There are more great bands living humbly around here than you might ever think and this is about one of them: Lomita’s Rolling Blackouts, an authoritatively classic American four-piece rock & roll band.

I saw their very first show and even then, as dumb and green as I was, my lizard brain knew to walk inside, and there they were—the fourth of July, an auspicious birthday and gunshots outside to celebrate, and later that summer they aligned perfectly and permanently. Songs full of quick changes, careful arrangements, a sense for propulsive potential that would have satisfied Von Braun and then Danny’s lyrics, matter-of-fact and so casually acid I find myself agreeable and obedient even years later: “Soiled souls, bad tans, frivolous tastes, got you wasting a-a-a-all your precious time!” (“About feeling helpless,” he said once. “Pretty self-explanatory.”)

They had a Who phase at first (“Black Cake”’s windmill finale) and then tried some Zeppelin (“Troubled” which had Gabe’s Bonham drum break) and some Thin Lizzy and some Elvis Costello and if I’m making it seem like they were just adept copycats, then I am ashamed of myself. They were conversant with the principles of the classics, as you are instructed to be in every aesthetic discipline which you can pay someone to teach you, and listening to their songs was restorative—healthy and reassuring that a band could just be good like it took no painful effort, though of course it must have, though it never seemed like it, which I am told augurs real ability. (Like: drummer Gabe was really a guitarist and could play probably any Beatles song there ever was, though within a year he was playing drums so ably that locals were pitching sticks into the club ceiling in frustration.)

And at this point I cannot imagine their unrecorded discography—one album (Black Is Beautiful) had only a few of their songs, and here and there I have demos of other songs: “Circles” is some half-sad pop song with a chorus that cuts out a few beats to catch you by surprise, and “Somebody’s Fool” has a lead line like Ray Davies and an expertly inspired drop-out in the middle where it’s just falsetto and one eerie guitar, and those are old songs by now. Supposedly the Blackouts are laying low and recording and recording—triple album, someone told me, which I actually hope is true. I have too many single records that needed even more afterwards, by bands who earned and deserved the time in a way that a lot of rock & roll bands never have the substance to touch, and who, as it turned out even if it took a few years, were always doing it better.

THE ROLLING BLACKOUTS WITH BURNING BRIDES, WHO RIDES THE TIGER AND AISLE 9 ALEX’S BAR | 2913 E ANAHEIM ST | LONG BEACH 90804 | 562.434.8292 | ALEXSBAR.COM | SUN | CONTACT VENUE FOR TIME | $10 | 21+ AND WITH BURNING BRIDES THE VIPER ROOM | 8852 W SUNSET BLVD | LOS ANGELES 90069 | THEVIPERROOM.COM | MON 9PM | $12 | 21+ ALSO WITH THUNDER IN THE VALLEY AND VAMPIRE HANDS ALEX’S BAR | THURS OCT 4 | 9PM | $5 | 21+

Tags: d boon, lomita, rolling blackouts, sst