Darrell Draeger
From central California came Hermanos Guzanos, the band of Darrell Draeger, Gary Wray and Brian J. Reidel. Ragged, grungy garage rock with a truly compact sound. They did nice tape covers with a classic comic book esthetic and Draeger himself has gone on to a very nice blogspot about underground music ( and also a monster movie blog) . They also did collaborations, notably with John Bartles and even yours truly.
The first tape I ever traded was in December of 1987! I sent it to the outstanding guitarist Bret Hart! He was a reviewer for “Option” magazine besides being a musician, and it was a “foot in the door” theory I had about possibly getting reviewed in that magazine. Bret’s music blew me away, and I have never recovered! I had sent tapes to indie labels in Europe, but that was my first trade. The name of the tape was “The Worm’s Turn” by me and my buddies Gary Wray and Brian J. Riedel. We called ourselves the misspelled Mexican name Hermanos Guzanos, to make sure we stayed in total obscurity, and it worked perfectly! I ended up sending out 407 of those tapes, #56 went to some weirdo named Don Campau that I had read about in some magaizine!!
Or something to that effect!!
