May Birthdays 
Hello Insect Surfer friends fans and fiends!
Believe it or not, this June will mark the 20th anniversary of the
Insect Surfers in Los Angeles!! Twenty years! I went on KXLU-FM (on
Jim Dunfrund's keenly missed 'Surf Wave' show) in November 1985, and
played a tape of Wash., DC Insect Surfer music, asking people to call
in if they were interested in continuing the band with me in L.A..
Only one person called, but it was Dano Sullivan, who turned out to be
the perfect musician. So we've been perpetrating insectoid surf music
for over 20 years together!! Much love to Dano. Our first gig was
June 8th , 1986 at a Manhattan Beach house party, an annual KXLU
blowout that was known as 'Surf Day'. We played right before our
buddies 'The Halibuts', and then the cops came before either of us
could do our 2nd sets! The Surf Punks even immortalized the party
(which had totally taken over the block) a few years later in a song
aptly entitled 'And Then The Cops Came' !!! Our main spawning ground
was at a Redondo Beach club called 'Toe's Tavern'(now a furniture
store), where we learned to play a repertoire of 3 sets a night,
finally having enough material not to repeat songs! We also put in
countless nights at the punk palace of "Raji's' in Hollywood, where
bands like L7 and Courtney Love's 'Hole' would play. After a few years
we were even able to play there on weekends as opposed to our initial
'Weds or Tues nights at midnight' sets! (Raji's succumbed to the 1991
earthquake...). In 1989, Steve Libis, aka the enigmatic 'Chrome
Oxide', tape recorded the first of many Insect shows and eventually
ended up becoming our sound archivist and webmaster. Big love to
Chrome Oxide! Dan Valentie, ace guitarist of 'The Boardwalkers', came
aboard as our bassist after Mike Oneil in 1991 and became arguably
modern surf rock's best bass player. He is also an evil genius/monster
guitarist when filling in for Dano! We have been just absolutely
blessed in the drummer department, with John Convertino (now with
indie-rock sensations 'Calexico), Jeff Utterback (who has played with
least 10 local bands!), Steve Bidrowski (now w/the Deoras), Mike
'Firehouse' Gregan, and the unflappable Jimbo Sciurba. We were lucky
enough to get the awesome Adrien Anthony (Chum) on skins after Jimbo's
departure to New Orleans (!) last year.
Anyway anyway anyway we are still tryna lay down the exact locale and
date for our 20th bash, and I put the question out to you, what would
you like to see in our 20 year celebration? We will finally have
t-shirts for sale again, some cool other bands, and a possible live cd
'party favor'....
Let us know!!!Send us your comments and/or any reminiscences .....!
Yer Pal.
David A
DavidArnson@sbcglobal.net
Jeff(bigtikidude)
