In 1978, most Rock & Roll fans in cincinnati were too preoccipied with recent national success of local boys-done-good Pure Prarie League to give much thought to the bands that wee festering in the city’s basements. Luckilythose bands weew upholding the polyvinyl chloride Rosetta Stone testemants ofof Rock & Roll handed down by the prophets The Wailers and Orangie Ray Hubbard. Armed with a bottle of Paramount gin, and a fist full of percodans, they set out to loosen the stranglehold on American Rock & Roll by Sgt. Pepper. THE CUSTOMS were one of those bands."The Loudest, drunkest, most Obnoxious Rock & Roll band in the city...fronted by a "singer" with the vocal ability of the local Greyhound bus dispatcher." Thats how the esteemed Cincinnati press referred to THE KUSTOMS( with the original capitol K), and I guess it was meant as a dig but that sounds like a mighty high praise...if your heros were The Sonics, and Little Vic. Led by post DMZ/pre0-LYRES Peter Greenberg, he sought the company of those equally guity in the persuit of rare B-sides to round out the initial line-up of Carson/Greenberg/Heil/Rosenthal in late "78. Formed with the sole understandind that one reveb-drentched note from a nearlt inaudible Link Wray 45’ had more Rock & Roll merit than the entire recorded output of Carlos Santana, The Kustoms stormed, and stumbled, through some of Cincinnati’s finer, shittier clubs.Note only did our hero’s draw the attention of the local press, they also attracted the attention of the Kustom Amplifier Company, who, ising thier better judgement promptyly fired a cease and desist order at the band over copywrite infringemant. Considering a total net worth of $13.48, they were unable to mount a significant legal defense and were forced to "reinvent" themselves as THE CUSTOMS. Shortly after the "reinvention," thier debut 45’ was releasedby fledging ( and fledging still) SHAKE IT RECORDS. In a fitting fashion, the group celebrated thier release by disbanding.After a cooling off period, they emerged with the line-up of Bivens/Cole/Greenberg/Heil/Rosenthal and a new set that quickly led to the recording of thier second SHAKE IT release, "Long Gone," a cut that would eventually end up in the set lists of bands on both sides of the Atlantic. Again, in perfect Rock & Roll irony, the group heralded this release with the departure of Greenberg to Boston, where he hooked up with his former cohort Jeff Connelly of The LYRES. A third line-up materialized which featured Dan Valentie replacing Greenberg, but it soon dissolved into numerou splinter bands including the Hi-Fis and the Auberaires.It’s almost 30 years later, and THE CUSTOMS have become more of a "legend" than a band. Collectors payind ridiculous prices for thier 45’s, bootlegs turning up now and then, folks swapping shitty live tapes, bands such as the DEVIL DOGS, THE MORTALS, the BOTTLE UPS, and others recording tier songs...who woulda thought, really? Hell, the whole time all they were really tryiny to say was, "Yeah, I know there’s millions of starving children, but you just gotta hear this Little Vic 45!"-Darren Blase,
President, SHAKE IT RECORDS!
Myspace Editor
Pimp MySpace
!-START Block to Place Custom Banner at Top of Page-!
!-Create div with image. Replace my image with the URL of your own image-
OR replace img block with your own code block!!-END Block to Place Custom Banner at Top of Page-!
