Great Discussion about Doggy Style. A great read and join in if you feel inspired. http://www.punkvinyl.com/2005/02/24/selections-from-the-punk-vault-doggy-style/
www.operationphoenixrecords.com/
Maximumrocknroll Interviews Doggy Style
Ed Caudill-guitar/Lou Gaez-drums/Ray bass/Brad X-vocals
By Frank Murray
Let's define DOGGY STYLE! "One simple monosyllabic word: fun. That's the key," says Lou who can be seen every show with his plastic mohawk on stage playing the drums.
DOGGY STYLE has emerged into the Orange County scene just in the past year-and-a-half and they have become the most entertaining band around. You never know what to expect when you see them live. You're always entertained to a donut fight and most recently a black rapper horn section. D.S. told MRR how they came up with the idea of a horn section: "It all started when we were talking about bands who have all these instruments on stage," explains Ray. "We thought it would be fun if we had all these instruments that didn't do anything. Now we have the horn players who get up there and don't play a note." Lou adds: "The real reason is we're just weasels. The more people we have in the band, the more we can get in on the guest list. And the more we can rip off promoters who've been ripping us off in return. We played a 1300 people show and we got paid $150. Do I have any hard feelings? No! We got 100 people in for free." Brad continues: "I think we've always been a wild band, wild as individuals growing up in school. We're always trying to give 100% all the time. We've realized, more than just a performance, we're entertainers. We decided just to go to the limit to lose it."
Those of you in the Las Vegas area know how great D.S. are. How many of you still remember the whole band ending their set stark naked? Along with being a naked band, D.S. usually has great donut fights to go along with their music. Every show they bring in a couple of hundred stale Winchell's donuts to throw into the crowd during "Donut Shop Rock".
But with more than donuts, horn players, body glitter and plastic mohawks, D.S. has adopted the color green as their team color. Lou began by telling MRR that D.S. has a "green" attitude. "Where it all started was, I had the garden hose green drum set and we were all going to try to match it with our guitars. But somewhere in the painting process the colors didn't really match up, so we all went for any shade of green." And this green color didn't just evolve slowly, it happened all at once! Everything was green! "First the drums, then the guitars, then I went to the green body paint, and then it just caught on like the gambling bug. It's the team color says Brad who now wears green rubber bands in his hair and green glitter and paint on his body. "It all comes back to the green M&M's. I found out through some scientific research that there is some validity to the hypothesis that green M&M's do make you horny. The green color they use, the chemical combination of the two gives you a real minor aphrodisiac effect" jokes Lou.
One interesting point D.S. has made is in their lyrics. Brad begins: "They have a serious lyrical side. They stress scene unity and positive mental attitude. We try to present our message in a unique way, which at times get us misunderstood about our sincerity." However, the band has not let politics surface in their songs. The farthest they have gone politically exists only in "Side By Side", where Brad talks about unity within the scene. Brad begins: "First, as a band as a whole, we're all very politically aware. As D.S., us four represent D.S. if we were to write political songs we'd be hypocrites because we don't all have the same views. We can't represent a political view if we all don't share the same view as a group. We go to demonstrations and we're all active. In "Side By Side" we have the same dreams as everyone else in this alternative music scene, to live in a world free of hate. It'll never happen, but we're still striving for it." On the absence of politics in their music, Lou adds: "I write political songs, I like to play political songs. But I've taken my expression out from D.S. and incorporated it into this other reggae band I play for. We're all full-on political. Nothing crushes me more than the issue of South Africa. I'd like to talk about this and I'd like my thoughts to be heard through D.S.. but because we're reaching so many people now, it wouldn't be fair. We were all involved in the anti-apartheid march at the South African consulate in Los Angeles. But we just feel that D.S. is not the channel we want to push our feelings through. For some reason, politics and hardcore for me just don't mix unless you have a show and you see a band play who is political and the singer has a lyric sheet to hand out to the crowd." As a band, D.S. has set the example for the rest of the hardcore community: if you're gonna preach, hand out lyric sheets; if not, shut up.
Having the name DOGGY STYLE has created a lot of barriers for the band. Their video "Donut Shop Rock" has had a hard time being aired because of the name of the band. Where it has been shown, the stations have simply stated the band as "D.S." and not "DOGGY STYLE". Personally, I've received negative remarks for my DOGGY STYLE car sticker because of the sexual connotation. It's been frustrating for the band, but they refuse to alter it. Brad states: "Just having the name DOGGY STYLE is an obstacle in itself. We're getting tired of answering up and explaining ourselves but we'll continue to do it. It is in fun. We're pinned as a homosexual band because of our stage antics. They don't know what fun is about." What has caused all the homosexual remarks is the "Do the Doggy Style" song at the end of their set. It has become a tradition for everyone to gather bodies into a long chain of happy dancers. The band usually leads the train around the hall as everyone buttrams the person in front of them. How this can be considered homosexual is absurd, considering how it's obviously all in fun.
Musically, DOGGY STYLE can simply be called punk-funk. Their influences can be traced to all forms of music. "Our roots are embedded in different. We're constantly changing. I guess what we've done is throw all our roots into one blender and it comes out in little pieces as D.S." DOGGY STYLE has remained true to hardcore despite the evolution of many bands into the speed metal genre. Lou adds, "As Andy Warhol once put it, 'There is no greater challenge in art than to create an audience'. Our style and ideas are unique; we're catering to something a lot of people do want. There's people out there who want to have a laugh or to receive something educational from what we have to say."
"We get knocked a lot for D.S. not being real HC. I think we're breaking through in a different way. DOGGY STYLE, I feel is taking punk back to its roots of true originality and not simply fitting any particular trend or mold!! explains Brad. Lou explains that their music and purpose is like that of a book: "Each show is a show in itself. Each show is a page in our history. We want to make it like each show is an index in the book of D.S. They can flip back through the book and go down the table of contents and look for the 'Kooky Spooks' show of the 'Strap-on Dildo' show or the 'Naked' show at Fenders. We've discovered how much fun it is. We're investing in the props and gimmicks and the time thinking about how much fun we're going to have and it all pays off." "It makes us feel good when we see people wearing our shirts and when they write us letting us know they appreciate us. We're all told by our families D.S. is a waste of time. We're not in the band for material reasons, like girls or money. We're in it for going nuts and having fun" adds Brad. Lou finished the subject by calling D.S. a hobby: "Some people want to get drunk and meet chicks, but for me personally it's like collecting stamps. It's just a good paying hobby. And I don't mean paying by money, I mean the rewards, the memories."
D.S. is a band that agrees, like me, with the general definition of the 'punk' idea, that attitude constituting free will and a non-conformist attitude for life. Brad explained it perfectly: "Society builds up and they're supposed to tell you when you reach a certain age you're supposed to graduate from college, you're supposed to be out in the working world. Well, that's the whole thing in this alternative music and the whole attitude towards it--not going by the rules, being a non-conformist. If someone is going to be 28 and in a band, as long as he's having fun , who cares what he's doing."
Recently here in Orange County, D.S. played the 'Fullerton College Battle of the Bands' in the school auditorium to a packed crowd. As with myself, all the members of DOGGY STYLE attend F.C. and there was a small crowd of the F.C. punks at the front of the stage. While some of us were familiar with the guys and their music, most of the crowd was non-hardcore and had never seen or heard of D.S. before. Ed explains the show: 'There was a lot of people there to see us. I think they enjoyed us." Lou continues: "I hope we shined a positive image on punk because a lot of people there didn't have any idea of what punk was about. I heard a lot of people there had a good time whether they were punk or not." At the end of the set, which was cut short, the traditional donut fight erupted. Brad asked the crowd if anyone was hungry and some of us wanted to share our donuts with the crowd in the back of the auditorium. Before we knew it, a huge donut fight ensued. Eclairs on the walls, glazed donuts hitting the faculty, chocolate bars on the walls and foreheads of the crowd. What fun. I've never seen an auditorium empty so fast. "I don't care how old you are, I think everyone enjoys a food fight" jokes Brad summed up the goal of the performance. "I think what turned a lot of people on is like whar Ray said, that everyone has this negative image of punk which is all well-taken and to a certain extent punk has earned itself that image. You know 75% of punk isn't all that negative garbage. Wer'e trying to add some new life, a new outlook to the scene by just going all out and breaking all the barriers, going crazy, Whatever it takes to put a smile on someone's face.
To close, DOGGY STYLE has 2 pieces of vinyl now out for safe. "We have an LP on Flipside thanx to Al, Hud, Gus and Big 'O". It's called Side By Side and we'd appreciate your support. Just give us a try, lend us an ear. We have a 7" EP, Work As One, which is on Mystic Records. We're happy they (Mystic) helped us out except the bad stuff that went on. They left some lyric sheets out of half the records, and we decided it was time to move on. It sounded terrible, but we've gotten some good feedback from it" says Brad. DOGGY STYLE has just begun distributing their new LP and it is terrific; good hardcore and a huge lyric/poster inside. They have great 2-sided shirts available ($7 ppd) that rank up there with the UNIFORM CHOICE shirts for look and quality. They plan a new LP for summer, more videos, and a full East Coast tour ,if all goes well. I thank D.S. for always supplying a good time, especially the Fullerton College show. Get their LP and write them now. DOGGY STYLE/ 634 Pinehurst Ave/ Placentia CA 92670
By Joel Beers
Assistant News Editor
The Associated Student Senate has announced it will seek $490.00 from the punk-rock band Doggy Style, for damages caused during the groups recent concert at Fullerton College.
The band has been accused by the senate of instigating a "food fight", which resulted in greasy stains from doughnuts defacing the carpet in the Student Center.
Norm Price, senate advisor, said the senate is asking the band to pay for cleaning of the carpet because it broke the contract signed before the performance.
"They violated their contract," Price said. "Previous to performing they had signed a contract indicating that if any damages resulted from their performance they would pay for it."
Price added that the five other groups that performed the same week as Doggy Style--in the A.S. sponsored Music Awareness Week Nov. I8-22--also signed the contract and abided by it.
"We were very pleased with the other bands conduct," he said, "(Doggy Style) just slipped over the edge...we're going to show them that they can't do this kind of thing to Fullerton College with impunity."
Price said the band has been given the bill and "is going to get back to us on it."
A small sampling of students who attended the performance found the majority of them believed the concert was fun but also believed the senate is justified in asking for restitution.
Andrew Lowery, a student who attended the show gave a capsule description of the scene. "They asked us if anyone was hungry," he said, "everyone said yes, so they heaved the doughnuts into the crowd. Then everyone just started throwing them, which is great because doughnuts don't hurt."
James Torrez, who also attended the performance, said members of the audience were just having fun.
"It was great," he said, "a real madhouse. Once they threw out the doughnuts everyone in the back started climbing over people in the front to get to them. It was a rad gig."
Not everyone who attended the show however, participated in the "fun."
Fred Allen said those who joined in the food fight displayed their immaturity.
"Besides," he said, "the chicks would think I was a little kid if I threw doughnuts. So I split, I was gone."
Allen agreed with the senate position that the group should pay for the cleaning, however Chris Edwards, another student, did not.
"It costs $500 to vacuum a rug?" she asked.
Members of the Placentia based band could not be reached for comment.