No More Censorship Defense Fund Benefit Show – Part II by Dennis Gonzales
After the success of The Kennel Club, Dave Davis and I needed a large venue to support the same amount of bands Pow had covered in the South Bay. In 1987 The South Bay club circuit, were few and far between. However, a lot of bands said they’d be happy to help us provided we could find a venue. The legendary music club Laundry Works, which until closing in 1987, had a plethora of great alternative bands. Mike Trippett and Sean Galvin —add an extremely brief explanation on who they are— were running a temporary venue called Muzzies.
Muzzies was the only small venue supporting alternative underground music supported itself as a pizza restaurant. We originally had three bands scheduled to play for the benefit show due to the size of the venue, The Endmen, London Down and Social Club. Mike and Sean were working on a new music venue in downtown San Jose, while they operated Muzzies as a temporary music venue for bands in the South Bay. Unfortunately, Muzzies closed soon after our —include the name of the event here— in San Fransisco. It was a great disappointment and we needed to find a large hall to support No More Censorship Defense Fund in Silicon Valley.
The only solution was to move the benefit show to the infamous and largest music venue of the South Bay. We luckily found One Step Beyond, known for hosting some of the biggest names in music including The Ramones, The Replacements, at the time, in Santa Clara. Pow Magazine were there to soak in everything. But, the history with local bands had a precarious relationship with the venue. Despite our successful show in San Francisco Stan Kent, owner of One Step Beyond, didn’t think we could get the same corporation we had at The Kennel Club —include a brief explanation on The Kennel Club—. Or that it was possible to squeeze six bands in just a few hours. Eventually, after negotiating about the operations and money, he agreed to help Pow Magazine. Stan was really behind our effort to help Jello Biafra —add brief description— and the political cause. This show gave us the opportunity to host the biggest and best local band shows in the South Bay.
The date was set for October 28th in —include year—. The Shockwaves, Social Club, The Frontier Wives, The Endmen, Grey Matter, and London Down were all lined up. And, with our experience in working with a large venue, we knew how to coordinate and work with the bands backline, stage management, and promotions. Joy Engstrom, from Metro Media Productions, —add how you know Joy— rejoined our music event, but this time with two stationary video cameras and one roaming video camera. In addition, we had our Pow photographers back in action. Richard Joste, from The Seeing Eye, also rejoined —add how you know Richard— our event. This time we customized a band set with logos, and specific graphics of the each band’s artwork. It was a grand multimedia visual experience.
Santa Clara: One Step Beyond October 28, 1987 – Original Review by Dave Davis, Pow Magazine
The San Jose Benefit show for Jello Biafra was a good showcase for some of San Jose’s best bands and a rare moment of solidarity in the year of back biting and sniping. Jello couldn’t make it, but it didn’t matter.
The evening opened up with the Social Club. If their performances that night sounds like their upcoming (or ep or single), it’s gonna cook. The Replacements crop up as an influence also great power pop bands from the 60’s and 70’s. the only unfortunate thing was no crowd to see them.
The San Jose house surf instrumental band the Shockwaves kicked down the doors. Frank Novicki from the Soul Senders is by far the hot-shit guitarist around. Dick Dale on speed solos wee razor sharp, splitting everybody’s hair – mine included.
Frontier Wives followed after the Shockwaves. The Wives had the biggest audience and audience response. At this point in the show, the peak crowd was milling around looking bored. The wives played some songs from their new album, trash C&W Rock mix. One great song ballad should be on a C&W radio if there was any justice. They encored with a punky cover of UFO’s “Only You Can Rock Me.”
The most popular band that night were the Endmen. Their sound is kind of a Cure/REM mix and the singer, Tim Stroupe posed too much, too arty. The guitarist, Michael Sears is great, but kinda iffy in other departments.
Grey Matter was cool. Moved around a lot, and didn’t seem to be bored. They had interesting lighting and played well together. “Marbletown” is a cool song and should be a hit in any other universe. But the best part of the evening was London Down who were the real deal. They by far put on the coolest set (besides the Shockwaves). Definitely one of the best bands around San Jose or San Francisco. They did some cool covers “Revolution”, a Yardbird cover “Happening ten Years Ago” and the Animals “I’m Crying”, rockin’ heaven. At the end of the set they brought Jeff Ebbage from Grey Matter on stage and did the Pretenders “Precious” which brought the house down.
The only thing that marred the evening was the crowd. They came late and left early. Granted, it was a Wednesday evening, but where are you gonna see all these bands in one evening for five bucks? Jesus Christ, it’s a noble cause too.
Pow Magazine’s Last Show
Despite the low turn out in the beginning and end of the show, we raised one thousand dollars and captured the monumental event on video. In 2011 Terry Boblet, my friend and KFJC DJ, encouraged me to build a show around Pow Magazine and No More Censorship Defense Fund for KFJC’s annual Month of Mayhem. That project alone took close to four months to prepare for two shows to be broadcast online. Two four-hour shows inspired me to start the online version of Pow Magazine. And the rest, as they say, is history.
I closed the magazine in late 1988. After publishing five issues I decided leaving the sixth incomplete was appripo. The interviews and music from our now infamous sixth issue were finally heard for the first time on KFJC in 2016, nearly three decades later. —instead of Four years later type the year—, POW would return to live music for another event and a new political cause. This time we went by STOP SPYING ON US!.
