Funland at the Pomona Elks Lodge
Friday, February 29
By: Jonny Whiteside
When the San Francisco’s Dead Kennedys first began generating shockwaves in 1978, the band’s name alone seemed an appalling, altogether unthinkable affront to society. Of course within a decade, punk rock—and by extension, the DK’s—had ineluctably altered popular society as fashion, music and attitude all become permeated with the sleek aura of rebel disregard that had initially fueled the movement. Ironically, nearly all those involved in punk soon found themselves just an irrelevant and outdated whiff of yesterday, and the musicians responsible for the shorter louder faster ethos struggled for equal time against the burgeoning hip-hop, heavy metal and grunge bands that dominated the pop marketplace. Which brings us to the subject of DK’s guitarist East Bay Ray, one of the only punk rock ax-men who not only proposed an original and striking new guitar style, he consistently refined and expanded it to a degree that ranks him alongside the most audacious and individuated players in rock history. Ray’s jolting, brilliant fretwork, ably supported and urged on by DKs bassist Klaus Flouride’s reliably delirious musicianship has been, for the last few years, sadly absent, as the former divided his time between exotic one-off side dishes and studio production and the latter signed on with bizarro cult avant-screamer the Legendary Stardust Cowboy. Enter Funland, a brand new combo assembled by Ray, Flouride, former Translator drummer Dave Scheff and fronted by pop-punk belter Skip, late of Bay Area band the Winona Riders. Queried about their sound, Ray plays it close to vest. “Yeah, we’ve been writing new songs, but I want to keep it under wraps,” he said last week. “It’s a work in progress.” When the wraps come off tonight, one thing is certain: That freaky, brilliant guitar is sure to propel Funland through some dizzying sonic territory. (Jonny Whiteside)
Funland at Pomona Elks Lodge, 695 Foothill Blvd., (909) 621-2172, Friday, February 29. Doors at 7PM, $10. All ages.
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