The Vandals

Punk Band: The Vandals, wrote a song, "I want to be a Cowboy" in response to a Cowboy bar next door to a Punk Club.

Amusing Punk Band: The Vandals wrote a song, "I want to be a Cowboy" about a Cowboy bar (Zubies) right next door to a Punk Club (Cuckoo's), and the fights that broke out between them. A very arty way of dealing with the conflict. Since I grew up in area, and frequented both, it was personal to me.

ℹ️ Info

~ Aristotle Sabouni
Created: 2018-05-31

I was into some punk in the late 70s and early 80s, but I also worked in Aerospace (a pretty button down job). At Rockwell, we used to go to Zubies for lunch, just down the street (a Cowboy bar), that had good burgers. It was right next door to the Cuckoos Nest: a punk bar/venue (that I also frequented). And they used to regularly have fights that emptied both places into the parking lots.

So this local punk band (the Vandals) wrote a song about it, to mock the Zubies crowd -- a cowboy song in the Punk style... that was guaranteed to get a fight started. But I loved the song.

I frequented the areas. I knew the bands. I wasn't a full on Punker. Never did the Mohawk or did the leather and chains thing myself. And I was not a big fighter. But I made fake IDs using the Yearbook staff photo enlarger. So I was at the scene, without being in the scene, or a target.

Eventually the Authorities in Huntington Beach / Costa Mesa harassed Cuckoo's Nest out of business.

Videos[edit | edit source]

The Vandals
I want to be a Cowboy

Documentary on OC Punk
We Were Feared

🗒️ Note:
Punk started with raging against the man and being different, but it didn't have a standardizes style of what different was. It had Ska (British), Doom/Gloom Rock, and OC Punk subgenres. Early on I was more Clash/Ska side, as the OC Punk became what I think of as true Punk. The dancing was pogo'ing and wild energy in the pure punk, whereas Ska was more dancish, and the Gloom stuff was more mellow and swaying. Over time Punk shifted into the mosh pit and slam dancing -- which was surprisingly non-violent (compared to what it looks like to outsiders)... it was more about running into each other, bouncing off, and continuing in the circle. The style had definetely coalesced more in the dress, Mohawks or spiked hair and gungy clothes, and was evolving away from the Ska Punks (Scooter Punks). Doom/Gloom rock was finding their own venues and definitely broke out so the scenes weren't overlapping. And Skin-heads were coming in more. Some took the slam dancing further, and it was almost pure violence -- finding a reason to beat on each other. And by then, I was off into Doom/Gloom Rock, which was more sullen and much less violent, but had some similarities in over-driven guitars, and remaining outsiders and different, without the frenetic speed.

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