Thieves Villians and Scoundrels Union
Local 12
AKA The Fabulous Weiners
Rehearsal Tapes 1984-1985
Excerpt From Notes by PEK
“… Following the Studio Sessions that I arrived just in time to participate in for two of the seven songs, I moved into the jam house on Ladera St in Santa Cruz with Jim and Dave and others. This was a wild time with a lot of partying, and the inappropriate behavior of youth, but we also made a lot of music. We performed at parties and at various bars in the area and we did a lot of rehearsing and less formal jamming in the house. Back at this time, I was not focused on documentation the way I am now, and generally the culture among musicians was not either – recording was expensive, and it was something you did on special occasions in the studio environment. However, on a few occasions we made board tapes of rehearsals from the PA, and this Deep Archive Post presents 6 songs worth of those recordings that have survived in my record. As far as I know, these are all that survived..…”
Rehearsal Tapes – 1984-1985
The Fabulous Weiners
Santa Cruz, CA 1984-1985
1) Medicine Song
2) Telephone
3) Can’t You Understand
4) Cutting Board
5) Have Some Gaingen
6) Farmer’s Flashlight
Jim Smith – vocals keyboards
George – guitar
Dave Murray – bass
Bob Galprin – vocals, drums
PEK – tenor saxophone
Notes by PEK
A few months back, I had a reunion session with Jim Smith and Dave Murray. We played in a band called the Fabulous Weiners in the early 80s. See the Evil Clown Album page for details and links: https://evilclown.rocks/fabulous-weiners/
I’ve been thinking a bit about those early times in my music career since they came, so I dug through my hard drives and found the one that has the digitized files of my early work from 84 to 92. Most of it is not well recorded, but there are some studio sessions and some things well better recorded by Space on a 4-channel Reel to Reel recorder.
When I moved to Santa Cruz in 1984 to go to UCSC I promptly fell in with the Thieves Villains and Scoundrels Union Local 12, my first rock band. I was 20 years old and the other guys were more musically experienced and all a bit older than me. The band had been around for a few years and was on their third guitar player, Steve Newman.
Following the Studio Sessions that I arrived just in time to participate in for two of the seven songs, I moved into the jam house on Ladera St in Santa Cruz with Jim and Dave and others. This was a wild time with a lot of partying, and the inappropriate behavior of youth, but we also made a lot of music. We performed at parties and at various bars in the area and we did a lot of rehearsing and less formal jamming in the house. Back at this time, I was not focused on documentation the way I am now, and generally the culture among musicians was not either – recording was expensive, and it was something you did on special occasions in the studio environment. However, on a few occasions we made board tapes of rehearsals from the PA, and this Deep Archive Post presents 6 songs worth of those recordings that have survived in my record. As far as I know, these are all that survived.
Eventually, before the inevitable dissolution of this band, we did have some bigger gigs: One in San Francisco and one at Ruthies in Berklee. The music was always fantastic – I wish that it were better documented – the tracks in this Deep Archive Post are not that well recorded and the performances are not perfect, but these songs are not recorded at all otherwise, and these recordings provide a little bit more insight into where this volatile but very interesting band was trying to go in the earliest part of my professional music career.
PEK – 11/7/2026