CHINA
WHITE
One of the most notorious bands to come out of the
Huntington Beach punk explosion at the turn of the
eighties was China White. Pioneering a heavy guitar
crunch with the hardcore urgency that came from
being punks in the middle of a police state, China
White kicked a serious dent in West Coast musical
history but somehow never got their due. Now in
'95, they're back with Frank Ruffino on guitar, Corey
Stretz on bass, Jeff Porter on vocals, James Lugo on
drums, and a new album called Addiction, pounding
out a sound that will always remain. -Brian Brannon
What was it like back in old HB?
Corey: It was pretty crazy. Me and Frank got in this
band called The Outsiders, which was a punk rock
band in Huntington Beach, and it was like 1978, I was
sixteen, and were Pistols-influenced, Clash and all that.
There was this other band called The Crowd, and they
were more like the day-glo wearin', happy surf
punkers, and we're the drink-as-much-as-you-can-till-
you-puke-and-pass-out-break-shit-don't-give-a-shit-
about-anyone-or-anything-do-whatever-you-want-say-
whatever-you-want-go wherever you want band. And
so, we played around for a couple years and got
banned from most places we played, and that band
ended up breaking up, and me and the other guitar
player started The Blades, and Frank started China White with a couple
other guys, and blah, blah, blah, on through the tearing shit up days,
and then after The Blades broke up the first time, me and Frank started
China White again, and we played for about three years, did the Olym
pic in LA, a few other shows and then basically we were all too fucked
up on drugs to continue in a band, and so we stopped playing, it was
1984, and went our own separate ways in our addictions, and then we
got clean and found out we needed to play, so we started up again.
Wasn't slam-dancing invented in Huntington Beach?
Corey: Yeah, well, it wasn't as much slamming as it was just people beat-
ing the fucking shit out of each other. People used to pogo, and then
one guy would get hit in the head, and then you'd see six or seven
people hitting somebody in the head, that's how it went.
Did you guys have a gang?
Corey: No, it wasn't a gang. It was a band. I suppose we did a lot of the
things that gangs do, I mean, we used to spray paint our name all over
shit. We used to beat people up, but we didn't call it a gang, we were
just a band, and the people that hung out with us did nutty shit. They'd
break windows and light cars on fire and whatever we felt like doing or
whatever we were under the influence of at that particular moment.
That new tape you guys got is hot.
Corey: Excellent. See, that's what we're after. We're not trying to capital-
ize on the old name. That's still who we are basically, but we're going on
with new shit. It's not really a reunion, we're just playing again.
Frank, how do you get that serious guitar crunch?
Frank: I usually use high power pick-ups and a clean, overloaded sound. I
get the crispness out of the pick-up, so you can hear every little wrist
playing because all that shit has a certain drive at high speed. It seems
to come through pretty good, and that's the sound I like.
I remember people were saying you were crossing metal with punk.
Frank: Yeah, I wanted to try something new, something with energy but
dynamic and with substance. Plus, it had a pretty driving feeling, so I
compiled that all into a punk with a metal edge, something you can hook
into, something that would really get under your skin from the first im
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pression. That's why I came up with the name, the intensity of the name
and the meaning behind it. I figured it was a good hook for the band.
Tell me about some of your new stuff.
Frank: The new stuff is kind of in the same vein as China White at the
beginning, but it's a little newer, a little more preserved. Time's gone by,
I've changed a little bit, and a lot of the words have to do with what's
going on in our lives, experiences and maybe what's going on out in the
world today. It's a little more up with the times, a little fresher. But it's
still basically in the same groove as before. It's from the heart, definitely.
Isn't one of the new songs about cops?
Jeff: Yeah, "Men In Blue," Corey pretty much wrote a couple of verses
about kicking ass and taking names later, drinking in the alleys and get-
ting chased out and getting sick of it, day in, day out. And then we've
got "Norma Jean," about Marilyn Monroe, her whole life story. It gets
summed up in one chorus. You know what the old songs are about,
addiction. We got "The Speed Metal Apes," it's like back on the planet
of the apes, but it's just this devil ape, and he's just the god, king, evil
ape that bites peoples' heads off, and he's back, and he's pissed.
Do you guys have any memorable moments from this last tour?
Jeff: Yeah, Reno won't forget us. We destroyed the stage. The band that
went with us, HFL, about two songs in was knee-deep on stage, and I
knew before those guys even hit the stage that it wasn't going to last
through China White. It was made out of pressboard and two-by-fours,
and at the end, there wasn't even any framework left on Frank's side of
the stage. He just demolished it. After we jumped up and down on it so
many times, there wasn't any stage, just framework, and on the last
song, Frank annihilated the framework. I didn't even see him do it. I was
too busy still jumping up and down and swinging from the lights, but he
managed to completely destroy what was left of it. That happened a
couple places. One guy got really pissed off because we broke a bottle,
and he wasn't going to pay us and all kinds of stuff, and then, Mark hit it
big in Vegas and treated everybody to a stylish time. Mark was our mer-
chandise/roadie/manager/driver/road dog. He hit $2500 on the slots,
and was pretty cool to everybody. Some of the memorable moments we
won't discuss. Those are the ones we just remember, and that's it.
PEGBOY
Out of the Windy City blows Pegboy, with the force of a marauding
freight train. Hurry up and get out of the way because this is the real
shit: Ripped jeans, short hair, melodic punk rock.
Pegboy was fromed around 1991 with ex-members of Naked Raygun,
The Bhopal Stiffs and The Effigies. After some rotating bass player
action, including Big Black/Shellac's Steve Albini and Jawbox's J
Robbins, the line-up seems to have settled to something pretty solid
with Raygun's strings John Haggerty on guitar, Pierre Kezdy on bass),
Joe Haggerty on drums and Larry Demore on vocals.
You can definitely hear the former bands coming together in Pegboy,
but there's a progression from them as well, from their Three-Chord
Monte Ep debut to their latest Lp, Earwig, recorded in France with lan
Burgess.
The recent tour with The Jesus Lizard was deemed by Kezdy as "The
Bad Luck Tour."
"We crashed our van in the Rockies, but I guess aside from that it's
been alright," he says.
Pegboy is heading back into the studio after the tour to do another
Ep, then (maybe) another tour in February or March, and hopefully
another Lp by next fall.
Keep an eye out for 'em, and catch some hard-driving punk style
rock just like you used to see it if they pass through town.
When asked if he had any advice for all the skaters out there, Kezdy
said, "Follow your heart. I'm too banged up to skate."
-Wez Lundry
JACK KILLED JILL...
"Being a female punk singer was difficult at
first," says Revik Delfin, a twenty-eight year old
veteran of the LA punk scene and singer for
the SF-based Jack Killed Jill... "I wanted to
steer people clearly away from that certain all
chick singers are slutty stereotype, and that
was why I didn't dress skimpy on stage. I basi-
cally act like a male on stage. But yet I'm not
like that 'L7' type either," she laughs. "I mean, I
shave my armpits."
"Revik's got more balls than any guy I know."
laughs guitarist Eric Matson. "She is the
woman after all our hearts. Her energy is really
bold on stage, and she's really up front with
people." Steve Korbay, who plays drums,
agrees, "Revik is totally one of the guys."
But what about that tag, Jack Killed Jill...? It
doesn't exactly paint a fairy tale picture. "First
of all," begins Delfin, "Jack and Jill' was the
first song I learned. Secondly, it's easy to
remember. Last and most importantly, the title
has three periods after the name which mean a
continuation. It could mean anything. It is in
your face, but it's all in fun."
"Some people hear the name and take
offense," explains Korbay, "but if they'd let us
explain it, then they'd understand. There's a lot.
of meaning behind it because of Revik and
what happened in her past. It has an anti-vio-
lence-against-women meaning."
Besides bashing out punk rock, Delfin prac-
tices Ken Jut Su, which is advanced Kendo.
She's been training since age six and teaches
martial arts self-defense classes at battered
women's shelters. Even on stage, Revik's mar-
tial arts training can help. "It gets out-of-hand
if kids step all over our equipment," she smiles,
"I do have to kick some kids off stage." Ouch!
"I'm really into philosophy and the supernat
ural, chirps Matson. "I do a lot of reading on
it, and it's kind of brought me into an area of
spirituality, and that's been my focus outside of
the band. Spirituality and higher awareness
'stuff,' so to say, kind of blends well with the
music. You look within yourself for both spiritu-
ality and to create music." -Sara Tassione