1983.08.19 - The Co Co Club, Los Angels, CA - Psi Com

[helicine]

just got a scan of this by email today

[edit] did some digging around, Coco's appears to be The Co Co Club - address is the same

[helicine]

Holy shit, I've been writing & rewriting this post for like 2hrs. I kept finding more info (some of it right under our fucking noses!) So bear with me on this, it's going to be a large post

05/??/1983 - The Co Co Club, Los Angeles, CA - Scratch Magazine #9
05/??/1983 - Cathay de Grande, Hollywood, CA - Scratch Magazine #10
06/??/1983 - The Co Co Club, Los Angeles, CA - Scratch Magazine #12

The months on these 3 dates are wrong. Scratch Magazine must have started out as a weekly magazine in mid-83. Here is how I got there:

I was going through Rich Evac's answers from our Q&A (which I will be posting very soon!), and his responses started the ball rolling. When asked about the Scratch dates, he recognized the venues, but was unsure of the dates, and noted Psi Com's first gig was at Hully Gully Studios.

According to our tour archive, the Hully Gully show was 8/13/1983 - and the flyer we have confirming that show does indeed say "Psi-Com Debut Party":



So that indicates those 3 shows took place after 8/13/83. Now, take a close look at the type for issue #3 from the Scratch archive clipping:



To me, it reads like this:

Tex and the Horseheads, The Zero, The Chili Peppers, 4th of July at Iris and Limey Dave's house and Wayzata(?) starts "Funk" Magazine

Not sure why we didn't catch that line before, or what caused us to ignore it. Assuming this is a review of that show, the issue would have had to have been printed after July 4, 1983.

I looked more at the blurbs for RHCP, and that image mentions them playing Al's Bar (#7) and The Plant (#8). I did some digging into old RHCP dates in 1983, and found Al's Bar on 7/31 and The Plant on 8/4.

So following that timeline, issue #9 that notes Psi-Com at The Co-Co Club would fall in mid-august - and we know Psi-Com played the Co-Co Club on 8/19/83.

Well, that is great in theory, but it is kind of thin. But I did more digging, and here is the smoking gun. Grab your copy of Whores and open to page 20:

whores_pg20.jpg

The cover for Issue #10 was right under our fucking noses! Also, more evidence that this was a weekly publication comes from a quote by Perry on the following page (bolding by me):

Ruben Blue did Scratch magazine, which became Rock City News, which is still around today. Here was another person showing up at Kinko's, writing about his friends and taking their picture... and publishing it in this weeky 'zine....

So this places those 3 dates in the August-September '83 time frame. It would be easy to say the first date is the 8/19/83 PC show at The Co-Co Club, but there is one problem. If Scratch was printed at the same day every week, then issue #9 would have the publication date of 8/18/83 - which would negate it having a review for the 8/19 show.

So that leaves us w/ the possibility there was yet another Co-Co Club show shortly before the 8/19 date, or Scratch was DIY enough that it didn't have regular publication dates.

What I propose doing with these dates is to change them to the following:

08/??/1983 - The Co Co Club, Los Angeles, CA (w/ mention that it may a duplicate for the 8/19 show)
08/??/1983 - Cathay de Grande, Hollywood, CA
09/??/1983 - The Co Co Club, Los Angeles, CA

[Mike]

I'm digesting this and am so very happy that you've put some of the pieces together even though it means I was wrong about some things.

I'll have to study this a bit more but my first thoughts are we'll be making a few changes to the list and those three shows will be moving or going away.

Really great detective work helicine!

I'll get back to this a bit later today and look it all over more thoroughly and we can decide how to adjust the list.

I think removing one of The Co Co Club shows completely and moving the other along with the Cathay de Grande show further down the list is probably the way to go.

[Mike]

I did some more digging around today and found a few things that collaborate what helicine has said.

First off I found an interview with Scratch Magazine's Ruben Blue on http://www.rockcitynews.com/
In the interview Ruben says that "Scratch Magazine came out every Friday for about two years, then monthly for about a year."

Here's the interview:





So during the time period we're concerned with the magazine was definitely being published weekly.
Here are the magazine covers from this time taken from http://www.rockcitynews.com/





The image helicine posted from Whores is very important because you can see the date August 25, 1983.

I scored the following two copies of Scratch off ebay a while back and it's my opinion that they will cement the fact that Scratch was a weekly publication and in turn help us to nail down as closely as possible the dates of the shows in question.



Scratch Magazine Vol. 1 No. 17 10/14/1983



Scratch Magazine Vol. 1 No. 20 11/4/1983

So with the fact that Scratch was a weekly publication no longer in question lets figure out as best we can when these Psi-Com shows in question actually took place.

I think we can achieve this by taking a look at a calendar for 1983 and by determining the publication dates of the issues of Scratch that are pertinent to these shows.



The issues that are important in regard to these shows are Vol. 1 No. 9, Vol. 1 No. 10, and Vol. 1 No. 12.
Using the calendar, the image from Whores, and the auction images from my copies of Scratch we can now figure out the publication dates easily.

Pertinent issues in bold

Vol. 1 No. 01 June 24, 1983
Vol. 1 No. 02 July 01, 1983
Vol. 1 No. 03 July 08, 1983
Vol. 1 No. 04 July 15, 1983
Vol. 1 No. 05 July 22, 1983
Vol. 1 No. 06 July 29, 1983
Vol. 1 No. 07 August 05.1983
Vol. 1 No. 08 August 12.1983
Vol. 1 No. 09 August 19.1983 - The Co Co Club
Vol. 1 No. 10 August 25.1983 - Cathay de Grande
Vol. 1 No. 11 September 02. 1983
Vol. 1 No. 12 September 09. 1983 - The Co Co Club
Vol. 1 No. 13 September 16, 1983

[helicine]

The dates on these issues are driving me nuts. I'm working on the assumption that the blurbs from the cover archive are noting show reviews, that seems to be backed up by our estimated publication date for issue #3 as well as the blurb for issue #20 (11/4/83):

Rhythm Lounge, Malaga Castle party Laurel Canyon party with Tupelo Chain Sex, SPAZZ ATTACK at China Club, Peter Beckman's Halloween party, Mau Mau at Co Co Club and The Fluids

Both issues #17 and #20 have Friday publication dates, yet the date on issue #10 (8/25) is a Thursday. However, I may have found a good reason for that. 8/25/83 was the start of the Sunset Junction Street Fair. Seems reasonable that they'd want to put that issue out a day early so the new magazine could gain exposure at a big event like that.

So issue #10 of Scratch Magazine places Psi Com's show at Cathay de Grande taking place between 8/20 - 8/24.

Rolling back a week for issue #9 and going back to a Friday publication date, that would give us 8/19/83. This would still preclude that issue reviewing the 8/19 Psi Com show at The Co Co Club. Could PC have possibly played two shows at The Co Co Club that week? We've already established their first gig was 8/13/83. So if there was an additional Co Co Club show, it would have had to have taken place 8/14 - 8/18. That could be the case, or maybe the issue is reviewing the Hully Gully gig and previewing the 8/19 Co Co Club gig?

I think the only way we'll know for sure is finding a copy of that issue.

Regardless from Scratch #12, I think we can estimate the September show at The Co Co Club taking place between 9/2 and 9/8 (but not 9/3).

[helicine]

Okay, here is what I did w/ the live show listings:

Updated the 6/?/83 Co Co Club show to 9/0?/83 and noted the estimated show date range. Date is still listed as unconfirmed.

Updated the 5/?/83 Cathay de Grande show to 8/2?/83 and noted the estimated show date range. Date is still listed as unconfirmed.

Updated the 5/?/83 Co Co Club show to 8/1?/83 noted that it may actually be 8/19 and the only dates an additional show could be. Date is now marked as questionable.

[Mike]

I think the changes you made are sound and I fixed the gig list in this thread so it matches the database.

While we'll most likely never know the exact dates of these shows short of lucking out and finding the Scratch Magazines associated with them at least you've got the bases covered by adding detailed info into these show's entries in the database.

I do have a lingering suspicion that the confirmed 08/19/1983 Co Co Club show and this 08/1?/1983 Co Co Club show could turn out to be one in the same.

I may have a lead as far as these Scratch Magazines go.
A few years back I talked to a guy (Frank)that has ran a record store here in my area for a long, long time.
He told me that he has every issue of Scratch in his store somewhere and that if he ever found them he'd contact me.

I haven't talked to him in a while but his store is not that far away and I might try my luck and pop in on him.
The only down side is he was wanting big $ for them as I recall and right now I can't swing it.

[Mike]

This date was one of the Scratch Magazine shows.
Listing comes from the LA weekly dated August 19-25, 1983.

[Mike]

While this show is confirmed via the flyer Jay hooked us up with and the listing in my above post I still want to get my mitts on a copy of Scratch Magazine Vol. 1 No. 9.

[Mike]

Here’s a cool ad for the Coco Club that has nothing directly to do with this show except for being another Scratch Magazine show. Not only that but I wanted to share it because I think it’s cool.

Ad taken from the LA Weekly dated August 12-18, 1983

9870F883-FDC9-4B34-8C30-31B278384295.jpeg