THE WOODIES - A Sunken Treasure Is Recovered

The Woodies were a trad inspired, reverb heavy surf group that appeared in 1991 at the beginning of the third wave surf revival in San Francisco. The group's approach was absolute revivalist, featuring vintage equipment, matching bowling shirts, rock solid energy and a deep love of the genre. Rick Escobar was the lead guitarist, and rhythm guitarist Dave Mangiante used a heavily reverbed tone in the classic palm damped style. Bob Bishop held down the rumbly bottom end with Chris Amsler on drums.

I can only describe their sound as ballsy with perfect execution. They once characterized themselves as "San Francisco's toughest band", and while I know they were referring to their bruising Marine image, it translated into their sound as an impenetrable tidal wave of chunky low-end reverb. The subtleties were relegated to the high end- the guitar melody and Amsler's' fancy stick work.

They had a great five year career, playing hundreds of shows, becoming staples of the live music scene and playing frequently on KFJC's live shows. Their career ended at a huge outdoor show called The Nitro Bikini Nationals Drag and Custom Car Show, with an acrimonious onstage breakup.

I talked to Rick Escobar on the eve of the posthumous release of their CD, "Swimmin' In The Reverb" on POP Records.

New Gandy Dancer: Here is an obvious question... How did The Woodies first come together?

Rick Escobar: Dave Mangiante, I knew ever since he moved in next door to me when we were in grade school. My mom actually saved him from drowning once when he was a little kid. We would get together and make noise when we were in High School. Bob Bishop went to the same school, and he would come over and play as well. We were playing a video game one night and talked about getting a real band going. Dave had just sold his Marshall stack and bought a Showman and a reverb tank. We asked Bob to play bass, and he had never played bass at all, but he took to it and got really good at.

We put an ad in BAM (local music magazine) and Chris Amsler called. He not only knew what surf music was but loved surf music and had been in surf bands since his teens. When he was in High School in Southern California, he had been in a band that opened for Dick Dale. He was an incredible drummer, and he really had the feel for surf music. Once he came in, it really solidified things and gave us our sound.

NGD: Surf music was still very obscure at the time you formed... How did find about it and decide to play it?

Rick: Everybody in the band liked surf music. We had been turned on to it by Phil Dirt's show or by buddies. Dave listened to a lot of surf and had already been learning some of the songs... I was listening to them but not playing them yet, and Dave got me into it and it was his idea to form the band around surf music.

NGD: Did anybody in the band actually surf?

Rick: I was the only Woodie who didn't surf. Chris was a great surfer, and knew all the pros. He surfed the big stuff. It was part of him... he surfed and he played surf music. Bob almost got killed surfing one day. One day after rehearsal, we went over to Bob's house and there was a broken surf board. His head went through the surfboard... the paramedics had to come. He damn near killed himself.

NGD: Bustin' Surfboards indeed!

Rick: Dave kind of surfs. Me, the closest thing I ever came to it was sitting on a styrofoam surfboard in Santa Cruz with a six pack of beer.

NGD: Where did the name come from?

Rick: We sat around one night trying to come up with names... Sandy Shorts was one possibility, The Gremmies was another, and a whole bunch of other names. The Woodies came up as a possibility, but it probably wasn't until we had already tried to get a gig and Chris, who was booking the band, just decided on The Woodies.

NGD: What was your first big break?

Rick: We had played a few small clubs, but our first big break was when Frank Noviki (from The Shockwaves,) recommended us for the Alex Bennet Morning Show on Live 105. Bennet was looking for a surf band to play live on his show, and we fit the bill. He asked us if we had a surf image, and Chris lied and said yes, then we had to rush out and find clothes, and that's how we ended up with the bowling shirts. Anyway, they gave us a hotel room near the radio station, and we ended up staying up all night playing rock stars and drinking. We had to get to the show for soundcheck at 4:30 AM. It was brutal, as we were still drunk while the show was airing. We took naps, lying on the stage, because the breaks between songs were so long. Saying that we played on the Alex Bennet show opened a lot of doors for us, I guess a lot of people had heard the show.

NGD: Knowing DJ Phil Dirt had a big influence on your career. How did you meet him?

Rick: We played at the Paradise Lounge with The Mermen and The Ultras, and we were just nobodies, playing in the upstairs room at this big club. In between our sets, Phil walked up handed me a beer coaster that he had written on, asking us if we wanted to play on his show. He didn't say much, just "Hi" and "I like what you are doing." I didn't recognize him, although I had listened to his show on KFJC for years. Then we read the coaster and thought, wow, that this would be really cool, doing a whole set playing live on the radio. We ended up playing at KFJC about six times. Phil became a good friend and helped out the band all the time. He was responsible for getting us on so many compilations.

NGD: Any fond memories from playing at the KFJC live radio shows?

Rick: The most memorable time at KFJC was the Winter Swell Christmas show. We were setting up and Uncle Al, who is another DJ at the station walks up to me with a Fender guitar case and says "Merry Christmas." At the time, I just had a gig bag for my guitar, so I thought he was giving me a Fender case for my axe. I took it and it was pretty heavy, and I opened it up and it was an authentic 1964 L-Series Jaguar. He said that he wanted to give it to somebody to who would really play it. I was just floored...

NGD: That leads me to ask you what kind of gear did you all use?

Rick: When I did the album, I was using a Showman head with a 2x12" Fender closed cabinet with JBLs in it, a 1964 reverb tank and a reissue Jazzmaster strung with 12-56 gauge strings. Dave had a 1964 Jaguar and a Showman with a 2x15" Fender bottom and a tank. Bob used an Ampeg rig. Chris' kit was vintage 60's as well. I eventually bought a Dual Showman Blackface, which I had modified to 100 watts, and a 2x15" bottom, so Dave and I had matching cabinets and matching 1964 Jags. My Dual Showman eventually was burned up when I was sending it to be repaired and the UPS truck caught on fire. I finally ended up using a HiWatt head.

NGD: What was your biggest show?

Rick: I think the biggest show we ever did was opening for The Mermen at The Bottom Of The Hill on a friday night. There was about 500 people there.

NGD: What were the early Woodies shows Like?

Rick: When we started, we were doing all covers. Mr. Moto, Bonanza, Goofy Foot... at one time we knew a ridiculous amount of surf music, I think we could do three hours of instro tunes, which is pretty incredible because it's not like blues where you can jam on a song for 15 minutes. You can't stretch out a traditional surf tune, they aren't structured that way. And we really wanted to do them like they were done in 1964, it just has a bigger sound to it.

NGD: How did you come up with original material?

Rick: How it generally worked is that I would come up with a melody and bring it to the band and we would jam it out, throw parts in until we all came to an agreement. Generally if one person said that something sucked, we would dump it. We really did function as a band that way. If you had one person bumming then it would always drag the song down, so we always made sure that everybody in the band was happy with all the parts. If we were writing a tune and it didn't sound like it came from 1964, we dumped it. Generally, every song on the album has some kind of joke or idea or photo driving it. A picture of something and then we would write around that subject.

NGD: You finished recording your CD long before the band broke up, why was it never released.

Rick: The whole band was very critical of the recording, which is why we never released it. We recorded the whole CD in one day. With another short day to overdub the trumpet part on "Spanish Word", a gong on "The Swami" and the chant on "Chief Bigwood" and "Zorba's Last Ride." It was mixed in one day, and then the masters were lost so we were stuck with the mixes we had.

I have always been super-critical about the music I have been making, but I listen back to the Woodies now and, that stuff was good and sounds great. It was fun. It is nothing near what I am doing now but it was a good time.

NGD: Why did you guys break up?

Rick: I think the reason we broke up is so that we could stay friends.

NGD: Really? With the exception of your last show, you guys always looked liked you worked so well together.

Rick: Oh, we always fought on stage, just getting pissed at each other. One guy wouldn't want to play a certain song, or something wasn't right... There would always be something that would set one of us guys off, and I am not pointing the finger at anyone in particular, it could have been any of us. But the infighting probably had a lot to do with our sound on stage. I never saw a bunch of more bitter guys.

NGD: How did you torment each other?

Rick: All kinds of ways. One time we were playing and we had a bad grounding problem with the amps. So for the whole show we would casually sneak up behind someone else and shock each other with our guitars.

But, the biggest shocking episode didn't even happen on stage. Once at a club in Fresno, after it had closed the manager had told us we could stay and drink. A woman at the bar had a taser to fend off potential attackers. She was showing it to us. Bob looked at it and said "That thing isn't going to stop anybody." and he grabbed it and let himself have it. Then he takes another beer and shocks himself again and says "This is kind of fun." Pretty soon, everyone in the band is taking hits off the taser.

NGD: Do you know what the other Woodies are doing now?

Rick: Dave is playing rockabilly with some buddies now, but I don't think they have started gigging yet. Bob is in San Diego now and playing gigs. Chris is in a bunch of bands now and is really active. I have been playing in a folk rock band in San Francisco. After the Woodies ended I took a few years off to just woodshed and practice. I am also putting together a recording studio in my home and hopefully will do composition work for video game companies.

NGD: Will The Woodies ever get back together?

Rick: We've talked about it, and everybody would like to do it. But the problem is that Bob lives in San Diego and there is no way we could ever get back together without all the original guys. We have all been friends for so long. It's something that we all did together and is so special to us. We just can't do it without Bob.

NGD: Will you play surf again?

Rick: I'd like to put out more trad surf music albums. But with everything else going on it is really tough to keep a really tight band together.

NGD: How would you sum up The Woodies experience?

Rick: We just wanted to have some fun and get some free beer.