The Puppies was an American new wave band from San Diego County, California formed in 1980. Dane Conover and Richard Filaccio were the chief songwriters. Dane Conover was co-lead vocalist and played keyboards. Rhythm guitarist Richard Filaccio, was co-lead singer, frontman. Bassist was Nino Del Pesco. Lead and rhythm guitarist was Jimmy Krieger. The drummer and backing vocalist was Irene Liberatore, formerly of the all female band The Dinettes. [1] [2]
The band was discovered by producer Kim Fowley during a talent search of San Diego bands. They released one 6 song EP album, the self-produced "Fun Is Right" on Hi Rise Records (their label), and a single "Mechanical Beat" produced by Liam Sternberg (The Bangles producer and writer of their hit, "Walk Like An Egyptian") for Stiff Records.
Dane Connover later played in Trees and penned "Happy Boy," the most successful song by The Beat Farmers. [3]
Bassist Nino Del Pesco played in Country Dick & the Snuggle Bunnies, the Knights of the Living Dead, AntiProduct, and The Black Tongued Bells. He played bass on Russ Tolman's 1994 album "Sweet Spot." [4]
Drummer Irene Liberatore later played on Bo-Day-Shus!!! by Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper and on Cindy Lee Berryhill's debut album "Who's Gonna Save The World?" [5]
Puppies disbanded in 1982.
Richard formed San Diego band, "Shelf Life" in 1984, did sound design for Berkeley's Last Planet Theatre in the early 2000s and still continues to write and post videos in YouTube.
On September 22, 2016, The Puppies song "Cat Food" from the 1981 album "Fun Is Right" [6] received some newfound publicity when Jimmy Fallon included it in the "Do Not Play" segment on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.Video on YouTube.
Nino Del Pesco passed away in 2019.
The Roots are an American hip hop band formed in 1987 by Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter and Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. The Roots serve as the house band on NBC's The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, having served in the same role on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon from 2009 to 2014.
Fallon Bowman is a musician and actor from London, Ontario, Canada, best known for her involvement with the band Kittie. She is of mixed ethnicity, as is characteristic of most Cape Coloureds from Cape Town. Since departing Kittie in 2001, Bowman has worked with Pigface and as a solo artist under the name Amphibious Assault, as well as under her own name.
Dwayne Rudolph Goettel was a Canadian electronic musician, best known for his work in the industrial music group Skinny Puppy. Starting his career playing for a variety of acts around Edmonton, he joined Skinny Puppy in 1986 following the departure of keyboardist Bill Leeb. A classically trained pianist, he helped to broaden Skinny Puppy's sound with his extensive knowledge of equipment and sampling. He assisted bandmate cEvin Key on a number of side projects such as The Tear Garden and Doubting Thomas, and helped form the experimental electronic group Download. He also created the independent record label Subconscious Communications with friend and colleague Phil Western as a means to release his solo work.
The Chambers Brothers are an American psychedelic soul band, best known for their eleven-minute 1967 psychedelic soul hit "Time Has Come Today". The group was part of the wave of new music that integrated American blues and gospel traditions with modern psychedelic and rock elements. Their music has been kept alive through frequent use in film soundtracks.
"Old Man" is a song written and performed by Canadian rock singer-songwriter and guitarist Neil Young from his 1972 album Harvest. "Old Man" was released as a single on Reprise Records in the spring of 1972, reaching number 4 in Canada, and number 31 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart for the week ending June 3.
The Beat Farmers were an American rock band that formed in San Diego, California, United States, in August 1983, and enjoyed a cult following into the early 1990s before the death of drummer and sometime lead singer Country Dick Montana. Their music has been described as an amalgamation of cow punk, jangle pop, roots rock, hard-twang Americana, country rock, rockabilly, and swamp rock. The San Diego Reader summed up their sound as ..."like Bo Diddley, CCR, Joe South, and the Yardbirds, ham fisted into a food processor, stuffed into a shotgun shell, and blasted into a beer keg at three in the morning."
Alberto y Lost Trios Paranoias were an English comedy rock band, formed in Manchester, England in 1973. Their story is told in CP Lee's book When We Were Thin. The name of the band is a corruption of the Latin American band Alberto y Los Trios Paraguayos.
Tenpole Tudor are an English punk band fronted by Edward Tudor-Pole. The band first came to prominence when Tudor-Pole appeared in the Sex Pistols' film The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle and on three of the singles released from the soundtrack. The band then went on to have hits in their own right with songs like "Swords of a Thousand Men" and "Wünderbar". The band has been active intermittently since 1977, and the current incarnation is known as the Tenpole Tudor Vikings.
"Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" is a novelty Christmas song. Written by Randy Brooks, the song was originally performed by the then-husband-and-wife duo of Elmo Shropshire and Patsy Trigg in 1979.
The Inmates are a British pub rock band, which formed after the split of The Flying Tigers in 1977. In 1982, they had a medium-sized international hit with a cover of The Standells' "Dirty Water", and a UK Top 40 hit with their cover of Jimmy McCracklin's track, "The Walk". "Dirty Water" reached number 51 in the United States in January 1980. The song led directly to them recording their debut album, First Offence, produced by Vic Maile for Radar Records. Two further albums were quickly recorded; Shot in the Dark again produced by Vic Maile, and Heatwave in Alaska produced by Stuart Coleman.
Love Jones is an American band from Louisville, Kentucky formed in 1990 and consists of Ben Daughtrey, Barry Thomas (bass), Chris Hawpe, Jonathan Palmer (vocals), and Stuart Johnson (drums).
Daniel Monte McLain, known by the stage name Country Dick Montana, was an American musician best known as a member of The Beat Farmers. He was born in Carmel, California. In 1995, It was reported that Montana suffered a heart attack and died while playing "The Girl I Almost Married" during a Beat Farmers show at the Longhorn Saloon in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada. The cause of death has been otherwise reported by the San Diego Reader as having been ruled as an aneurysm. The band disbanded shortly thereafter.
"Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" is a song recorded by Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and released as the first single from Nicks' debut solo album Bella Donna (1981). The track is the album's only song that was neither written nor co-written by Nicks. Written by Tom Petty and Mike Campbell as a Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers song, Jimmy Iovine, who was also working for Stevie Nicks at the time, arranged for her to sing on it. Petty sang with Nicks in the chorus and bridge, while his entire band played on the song.
Yeasayer was an American experimental rock band from Brooklyn, New York, formed in 2006. The band consisted of Chris Keating, Ira Wolf Tuton, and Anand Wilder. They announced their split on December 19, 2019.
Steve Dior is a British musician, guitarist, vocalist and songwriter best known for being in bands such as The London Cowboys, Filthy Lucre and The Idols.
Paul Pesco is an American session guitarist, singer-songwriter, film score composer and record producer.
Lene Lovich is an English-American singer, songwriter and musician. She first gained attention in 1979 with the release of her hit single "Lucky Number", which peaked at number 3 on the UK Singles Chart and made her a leading figure of the new wave music scene.
Nino Del Pesco was a musician known for playing in various critically acclaimed and groundbreaking bands throughout his career including the Lonesome Strangers, Snake Farm, the Knights of the Living Dead, AntiProduct, and The Black Tongued Bells. In addition to being a musician, Nino was also an award winning screenwriter.
Iridescence is the fourth studio album by American boy band Brockhampton, released on September 21, 2018, by Question Everything, Inc. and RCA Records. It is their major-label debut and the first installment of their The Best Years of Our Lives trilogy. The self-produced album was recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London, as well as the group's own studio in Hawaii. It is their first album since founding member Ameer Vann's departure from the group following sexual misconduct allegations. It debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 albums chart, becoming the group's only chart-topping album.
The Lonesome Strangers were an American country rock music band formed in Los Angeles in 1984. The line-up of songwriters Jeff Rymes and Randy Weeks, bassist Nino Del Pesco and drummer Joe Nanini had led the band to be "one of California's most influential bands" and helped revive country rock music. However, Pesco and Nanini left the band to pursue their own careers and were replaced by Lorne Rall as the bassist and Mike McLean as the drummer.