U.S. Mods - I'm Gone

A. I'm Gone


B. Government


U.S. MODS (Mesquite, TX)
I'm Gone b/w Government
Treblephone (TREB-52), 1980

Pat McKanna’s musical foundation started building at an early age as he was exposed to everything from the Beatles and Rolling Stones to Little Richard and Hank Williams through the jukebox at his grandfather’s pool hall. By the time he reached his teens in the late 70s, it was the Who, Jam, Clash and Sex Pistols that most influenced him.

Formed in 1978, the US Mods was Pat’s first band that did original material. He played lead guitar and sang while Jimmy Holcomb, who Pat knew from their junior high days, added rhythm guitar and vocals. On bass and backing vocals was Adrian Brooke, who was a couple years older than Jimmy but attended the same high school in Mesquite, TX. The three of them would be the core of the band.

Jimmy Holcomb grew up in a household full of Bob Wills, Buck Owens, and Jerry Lee Lewis records. Being an only child, listening to music was one of his favorite pastimes. As an early teen he got the idea that he could make music too. He and the two other boys would get together as often as possible and play along to the Stones and three chord punk songs. They didn’t have a steady drummer in the early days. They often recorded their rehearsals with Pat playing drums and then laying his guitar parts over that.

All three began writing their own songs and they would bring the finished compositions to practices for everyone else to learn. Being teenagers, the Mods were unable to play typical club gigs. Instead they had to resort to doing talent shows or Kmart battle of the bands competitions. They even played the Traveling Gong Show auditions and a McDonald’s anniversary celebration. Crippled due to their age and geographic constraints, they often conjured up fantasies of the band existing on a higher level.

In early 1980, they borrowed Quad Pi’s drummer Reagan Eskridge who was in the WW Samuell High School band drum corps with Pat. The four of them laid down the basic tracks for “I’m Gone” and “Government” on a 4-track recorder in a mini-warehouse. They added vocals, handclaps and tape echo in Jimmy’s bedroom using an Akai reel to reel. The songs were then mixed down to glorious mono. They succeeded in giving the tracks a lo-fi, yet very charming 60’s feel. With help from their parents, 200 copies of a single were pressed up on their own Treblephone Records with an accompanied foldover sleeve.

The records were sold at Metamorphosis and VVV Records in Dallas. Jimmy brought copies to North Mesquite High to sell and Pat would bring them to his school in Pleasant Grove. They sent a copy to Bomp Records in California which led to Greg Shaw ordering 30 copies for their mail order catalog. In recent years it was revealed that Shaw was a bigger fan of the band than they imagined as a review of the single was finally published in Bomp’s Saving The World One Record At A Time book which included the long lost unpublished final issue of Bomp magazine.

After the single was released, they saw an ad in a local music rag called Buddy for a drummer looking to play with people with similar musical taste, which was not commonplace in Mesquite. They were even more surprised when they called and it was a girl on the other end. Tracye O’Neal’s upbringing was full of music. She fell in love with the Beatles at the age of five during their performance on the Ed Sullivan show. She even refused to go out for dinner on her seventh birthday as to not miss a Dave Clark Five appearance on television.

Tracye wanted to be a drummer as long as she could remember. She would spend hours “playing” along to the Partridge Family albums using wooden horseshoe stakes for sticks and her sister’s bed for drums. Finally in 1978, to her delight she won a real drum kit. By then she had broadened her musical spectrum to include the Faces, the Stones, Bowie, Cheap Trick, the Kinks, and above all… the Who.

Tracye auditioned for the Mods and got the gig. With Jimmy and Pat being 17, they still weren’t able to secure gigs. They went to the Hot Klub to try and arrange an opening slot for The Doo, but that never materialized. They couldn’t build a fan base without playing shows and once Jimmy graduated a year later and went off to college at Baylor in Waco, that marked the end of the Mods’ nearly unrecognized reign.

Adrian, Pat and Tracye carried on as The Tickets for a short while with a guitarist named Lee. He was a bit older and more experienced and they played some gigs together but Pat was ready to change direction musically. He left to start the Trees, who went on to be one of the most popular groups in the 80's Deep Ellum scene. Adrian and Tracye continued on with Lee briefly until Tracye left for England in September 1981.

“Government” received some recognition on Hyped2Death’s Teen Line series several years ago and just recently, “I’m Gone” earned a notch on 2013's Texas power pop compilation album, Radio Ready that was released on Cheap Rewards Records.

Manual Scan - Plan Of Action

A1. Nothing You Can Do


A2. American Way


A3. New Difference


B1. Anymore


B2. Jungle Beat


MANUAL SCAN (San Diego, CA)
Plan Of Action EP
Dance And Stance (DS-101), 1983

In 1977, a group of music minded kids at La Jolla High School that were influenced by AM pop radio started meeting in the music hall to play together. Out of this assembly came a band called Starjammer (an X-Men reference), which featured a 14-year old female drummer named Terry Moore, guitarists Bart Mendoza and Kevin Donaker-Ring, and a bass player named David Gardner.

The band started off playing house parties and had to cater to the demands of the crowds, primarily doing cover music by bands like the Kinks, Yardbirds, Beatles, Zombies, and Paul Revere, as well as Motown and R&B standards. They later added a couple members, Yvonne Simon on vocals and guitar, and Larry Sherman on keyboards. When their drummer Terry wasn't able to play a lunchtime "gig" in their school's music room, Paul Brewin stepped in as her replacement. It was around that time in late 1979 that they changed their name to the Pedestrians.

The Pedestrians played together for about a year and were very active. But Larry left the group after they recorded some home demos and by early 1981 the band had parted ways. Shortly thereafter, Bart and Kevin formed a new group with a drummer named Paul Kaufman, and then a bassist named David Fleminger came on board soon after that. They met David, who went to a rival high school, a few months earlier at a Pedestrians show. Yvonne completed the line-up.

They called the new group Manual Scan, which was chosen after opening a Radio Shack catalog and dropping a finger on a police scanner that had automatic or manual scan. They naturally levitated to a mod sound, having already acquired the look by wearing sharp suits and boots inspired by their heroes, the Zombies, and of course the Beatles. They were also fixated with scooters and mod culture.

Bart become the primary songwriter of the band, though the other members made contributions as well. They started playing the club circuit in San Diego and the LA/Hollywood area. They also received steady work doing school functions and teen dances. The band recorded some rough demos before hooking up with Peter English, who owned Kings Road Cafe, a club that proved to be a big game changer in the San Diego music scene. Peter became the band's manager and funded the recording and release of the first Manual Scan EP.

They went to Circle Sound Studios in the fall of 1982. By this time Yvonne had left the group and Paul Brewin was back on drums. Since the songs all clocked in at two minutes or less, they opted to make an EP rather than a single. Though the record was named Plan Of Action, they couldn't get a good recording of the title track. Instead they laid down a tune that Bart had written the night before called "Nothing You Can Do." The session was done in a single evening and they were thrilled to have it produced by one of their biggest influences, Scott Harrington, of legendary San Diego group The Penetrators.

1,000 copies of the 7" were pressed in early 1983 with a Lichtenstein-esque pop art cover. It was put out on Peter's Dance And Stance label, becoming the sole release under that imprint. Peter lined up distribution with Faulty Products, an offshoot of IRS, and the records moved quickly. The band recorded a video for each of the five songs from the EP on a local cable access TV show. They received very positive press from local papers and even Trouser Press.

By 1984 the band was traveling a lot more and became regulars in the Bay area. As time progressed, they improved as musicians, got better equipment, and their sound evolved as their influences expanded. They incurred more line-up changes over the years. Further releases would come out including an LP in 1985 on the Hi-lo label out of the UK, as well as 7"s on Get Hip and Susstones. They were approached by several major labels including Enigma, IRS and RCA, but most of them either wanted certain members to leave the band or song lyrics to be changed, so ultimately they favored to stick with independent labels.

In 1989, the song "Nothing Can Be Everything" was included in a movie called A Girl To Kill For and was actually played in its entirety. By 1991, the music scene had changed. People weren't going out to shows like they used to. The goal of the band had always been to have a good time, but after 10 years they felt they'd done all they could do and simply split up.

Bart ended up joining a group called the Shambles and has been playing with them for the past 20 years. You could keep up with them here.

The Shades - Time For Change

A. Time For Change


B. Shake It


THE SHADES (St Petersburg, FL)
Time For Change b/w Shake It
Direct Hit (DH-001), 1980

Dennis Dalcin started playing guitar, writing songs and singing in bands in 1972. His first project was called Bite with drummer Guy Silvestro. They ended up forming an Alice Cooper meets The Who type band called The Look a couple years later.

Around the same time, Gary Heslin was playing drums with guitarist Terry Carolan in renowned Tampa glam band, Amnesia. By '76 Dennis and Gary had both joined Terry's new group, Just Boys. After just a brief stint in that group, Dennis wanted to form his own band.

He found a bass player named Marla Misenheimer who had been in the Snails with Richard Barone, who later went on to lead The Bongos. With Marla on board, Dennis then called on Gary, who had just left Just Boys, and the three of them began The Shades. Flustered yet? Me too!

They started picking up shows when they could get them (their first one opening for Just Boys). There wasn't much of a scene going on in the St. Pete/Tampa area yet, so most of their gigs were at nearby campuses, playing to apathetic audiences.

At first, the band was heavily influenced by the glam rock scene of New York and London. But when Gary left the group in '78, Dennis changed gears toward a more mod look and sound, heavily laced in the Jam and early Who stylings.

The new line-up consisted of Dennis' old band mate Guy Silvestro on drums and Guy's brother-in-law Ed Siersema on bass. Guy was also a sax player and sometimes at shows would stick the sax between his legs and play the drums with his left hand while wailing on the sax using his right. The people of Tampa Bay weren't quite ready for that yet. However, a neighbor of Dennis believed in what they were doing and shelled out the money to produce a single for the band.

In July, 1980, they recorded "Time For Change" and "Shake It" in a 4 track studio next to Paragon Music. 1,000 copies of the single were released on Dennis' Direct Hit label in a sleeve he put together in art class at graphics school. The single sold well despite not receiving any local airplay. In fact, most of the copies sold outside of Florida.

The band members started going their separate ways and playing different styles of music after that. Guy played in various punk bands, while Dennis formed Perfect Strangers, followed by The Petal Pushers, and most recently, The Lears, who have a CD out on Get Hip. Ed became a geologist.

Back To Zero - Your Side Of Heaven

A. Your Side Of Heaven


B. Back To Back


BACK TO ZERO (London, England)
Your Side Of Heaven b/w Back To Back
Fiction (FICS-004), 1979

Back To Zero were forerunners of the British mod-revival movement. Formed in 1978, they lasted just a short while with various line-up changes and only have this one single to carry their legacy. But what a terrific pair of songs they left in their wake.

The record was produced by Chris Parry, who also did outstanding work with the Purple Hearts, on his own Fiction Records label. Fiction, which is now owned by Universal, is best known for boosting the career of the Cure. Back To Zero was one of the earliest singles released on the label.

During their heyday, Back To Zero played regularly with Secret Affair, The Chords, Purple Hearts and other great mod bands of the time until they vanished in 1980. "Your Side Of Heaven" was comped on a terrific mod revival collection called Unsung Heroes, released on Unicorn records in 1988.