- 1977-1981
- October 1977 and Sid Griffin leaves his native
Louisville Kentucky to go to LA; his parents
believed to go to law school, but Griffin really
wanted to be in a rock'n'roll band. Inspired by
The Byrds and The Flying Burrito Brothers, he had
plunged head -first into rock music, taking in
The Beatles, 50s rock, as well as folk and 60s
garage bands for his inspiration, along with the
then burgeoning sounds of punk rock. Back home in
Kentucky Sid had been in a part time band called
The Frosties that played local parties doing 50s
and 60s covers and the odd Griffin original, but
failed to find the commitment to ever record in a
studio. California though was the land of
Hollywood, the film and music capital of the
world and it was here that Griffin intended to
make a more serious attempt to enter the rock
business.
- During the summer of 1978 Griffin played in a
punk band called Death Wish, covering songs by
The Clash and The Sex Pistols. It was clearly
going nowhere with its' punk ethos and Griffin
never took it seriously enough to consider
quitting university. At the end of the year
however Griffin responded to an advert from
Shelly Ganz who was looking to form a 60s style
garage band. This sounded more like his sort of
thing. Having met up with Ganz the pair started
recruiting other members. By April 1979 the band
had emerged into a 5 piece whose influence was
quite clearly 60s bands like The Seeds, The
Standells and the Chocolate Watch Band. The band
started playing gigs in LA doing bizarre, obscure
covers of 60s bands, and by all accounts, the
more obscure the song the better. However Ganz's
vision of The Unclaimed was quite obviously
backward rather than forward looking. Despite
personnel changes, over the next few months The
Unclaimed developed a following in LA and had no
trouble finding gigs. By now the band had begun
to write their own material, though had nowhere
near enough money to be able to record let alone
release any of their own songs. However the
opportunity arose when they met Dave Gibson who
was not only the owner of loads of sixties
records but was also prepared to put up the money
to let The Unclaimed record. The result was a 4
track EP on Moxie Records which offered 2 tracks
each from Griffin and Ganz. Recorded at Studio 9,
Hollywood the EP was quite clearly a low budget
recording! The guitars and organ were as tied to
the 60s garage sound as you could possibly
imagine, though the harmonica on 'The Sorrow'
gave an idea of what Griffin would do later. Of
his two songs, 'Time To Time' was the weaker,
with a simple lyric and speeded up sound towards
the end, whilst 'Deposition Central (The Acid
Song)' was a tale of a bad trip with an excellent
hook, guitars and vocals.
- The record helped get The Unclaimed more of a
mane for themselves around LA, but its' sound,
firmly fixed in the sixties was also going to
mark a parting of the ways. Whilst Griffin
enjoyed listening to and playing sixties music he
was also aware that 1980 marked a new decade and
he wanted to move the music of The Unclaimed
forward with the times. Ganz however was far more
solidly set in 1966, obsessed with the garage
sound of the time and had no inclination to play
other styles of music. It became apparent that
the two were looking in opposite directions, so
in November 1981 Sid decided to leave The
Unclaimed to form his own band. He took with him
bassist Barry Shanks and drummer Matt Roberts.
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