If somebody advised Michael Ubaldini that dusty copies of his previous band’s information from 4 many years in the past would promote for a whole lot of {dollars} every, he in all probability wouldn’t have believed it. Not that anybody was actually dashing to inform him. Particularly not the internet-savvy younger followers of his obscure, ‘80s power pop band the Earwigs that followed him to his present day gigs as a singer-songwriter begging for copies of “She’s So Naive” pressed on 45s for a mere $20 every. To Ubaldini, 61, it (naively) appeared like he was getting the higher finish of the discount.
“Some kids came up to me at a gig one time and asked if I had any of Earwigs’ original 45s which had become a collector’s item but at the time I didn’t know it,” mentioned the Orange County-based musician who nonetheless gigs frequently in OC and Nashville, Tenn. “I told em ‘yeah I got couple of those.’ They said ‘Can we buy em?’ So I sold them to the kids for $20 each thinking I’d gotten a really good score, but they must’ve felt guilty about what they paid for them because they were offering to give me some other records on top of what they paid me.”
Not lengthy after the doubtful parking zone sale, Ubaldini went on-line to seek out that the 45s packaged in flimsy, handmade cardboard sleeves with the picture of the band pasted on the entrance (often called the “alt sleeve” to the unique band emblem cowl) had been being offered for over $300 on websites like Discogs.
After his preliminary shock subsided, Ubaldini tried promoting the information himself. “I had a few more and I put one online “bidding starts at $100, buy it now for $350,” he mentioned. “I went to breakfast and came back and somebody bought it.”
The Earwigs carry out at The Cuckoo’s Nest in Costa Mesa
(Courtesy of Michael Ubaldini)
The best quantity paid for a uncommon bootleg copy of the 45 file containing the catchy single “She’s So Naive” and “Here Come the Earwigs” was offered on Discogs for about $500.
This revelation, alongside together with his want to lastly give his previous band a correct album launch, sparked a latest revival for The Earwig’s largely forgotten legacy. On Saturday, The Earwigs–fronted by Ubaldini alongside the band’s authentic drummer Dave Reed, guitarist Oscar Munoz and bassist Jerry Adamowicz will play a long-delayed album launch celebration at The Mamba Sports activities Bar & Grill in Huntington Seashore for “The Earwigs—Orange County 1981: The Lost Debut Album” restricted version vinyl urgent. The primary two pressings offered out in simply 5 days by way of pre-order. Every of the pressings of 100 copies is made in a special colour that are being stocked in file shops from their native OC to London and Japan.
The once-popular band began in 1978 and performed at legendary Costa Mesa venue the Cuckoo’s Nest alongside celebrated bands from the early OC punk scene like The Adolescents, T.S.O.L., Agent Orange and Social Distortion. ”We had been a part of that scene however we weren’t a punk band—we had a little bit of a mod affect blended with the power of the Buzzcocks and the Ramones,” Ubaldini mentioned.
Although they by no means fairly slot in with the bands credited for bringing Orange County punk to the world, the pompadour grit that mixed Hamburg-era Beatles with sped-up bubblegum pop songs about teenage love and suburban angst carved a short second within the music historical past of the area.
So how did the Earwigs acquire this unlikely cult following unbeknownst to its founding member?
Ubaldini thinks it began when radio DJs like KROQ’s Rodney Bingenheimer and KNAC’s Sue Mink began taking part in the band’s music on their radio exhibits often within the early ‘80s. Fans recorded the tunes off the airwaves onto cassettes that got passed around before they even had an official record to sell. Their songs became sought after among fans of power pop/ garage rock and sped-up rockabilly. The underground success was driven by the catchy, saccharine-yet-explosive single “She’s So Naive.”
Although they had been getting airplay, the band’s album, which they recorded in 1981, didn’t see daylight as a result of the ill-fated Rock-A-Mod Data, which the recorded the album for, folded earlier than it could possibly be launched.
The band’s authentic lineup (together with guitarist Ashton Rands and bassist Dave Hughes) broke up by 1982 as members grew up and went their separate methods, solely to reform with a barely totally different line up for a pair extra years earlier than permenantly calling it quits in 1984, by no means releasing any extra music. Ubaldini continued to play roots rock and honky-tonk music in OC and shaped a brand new band known as Thriller Practice that acquired signed however solely lasted for one file. For years, late Instances leisure reporter Mike Boehm championed Ubaldini as a dynamite frontman and songwriter.
“A tall, lean, dark-and-handsome, denim-and-leather type, Ubaldini fits the old-fashioned mold of the classic rock ‘n’ roll rebel as well as anybody on the O.C. scene,” Boehm writes. “Mystery Train is built on sturdy old models, full of cranking, Stones-Creedence guitar riffs and rockabilly licks. It also is largely concerned with that oldest of rock ‘n’ roll subjects: unbridled, gleeful, exuberant sexual lust.” Ubaldini’s native success spent a few years gaining steam although by no means fairly taking off.
“Meanwhile all this time I’d be playing in other bands or my own projects there would be someone in the crowd that would yell ‘Earwigs!’ at me,” he remembers. “‘Play some Earwigs!’ It always struck me as funny. And I would never play those songs because I’d written so many others since then.”
Over time, Ubaldini says he’s gotten gives from various small indie labels wanting to place out a number of the Earwigs’ previous singles. These had been largely dangerous offers that promised little or no revenue for the songs Ubaldini wrote as a teen.
“I wasn’t gonna get anything out of it [from any of these small labels], he said. “I thought I might put it out one day but I’m not gonna put it out and just get ripped off. I’ve been through too much in music to get ripped off again.”
The unique lineup of the Earwigs: Michael Ubaldini, Dave Reed, Ashton Rands, and Tom Hughes.
(Courtesy of Michael Ubaldini)
Earlier this yr, Ubaldini, impressed by the revived curiosity in his music, lastly took the leap and began to remaster the previous album of 17 tracks that he by no means put out, opting to press it independently. A brand new batch has arrived in time for the band’s final one-off present to commemorate their unlikely cult standing. The frontman is worked up to promote copies to die-hard native followers who helped hold his music alive.
“I just want to release this Earwigs thing, it deserves its place, it’s part of that time and all these kids wanna hear it,” Ubaldini mentioned. As to why the music itself appears to have caught on even after the revivalists bands like Jet, The Strokes and The Strypes have come and gone, he attributes it to the timeless, straight-ahead nature of the music. “It seems like the songs never got dated really because we stayed away from the synthesizers and we just played rock-n-roll.”
Ubaldini wonders if the thriller of the band that by no means made it large is what stored individuals interested by his previous music. “People had recorded our stuff and made bootlegs of our music for all these years and it kinda took on a weird life of its own. It’s kinda mind blowing when I think about it,” he mentioned. “There was not one ounce of promotion or anything. It was truly all because of the underground scene.”
