Southern California's Ron & Nancy have had their incredible back catalog of Fullertone Records puckish punkish recordings reissued by the SideCartel together with a new collection of unreleased tracks "I Don't Recall the Songs of Ron & Nancy." We've dug up a prehistory Happy Shopper interview with the singer from the band.
1) What was the last electrical appliance you bought?
The last electrical appliance I bought was a Gibson 335 guitar. So beautiful, it's a 70s model or something, the gold finish completely worn off the the machine heads and the Bigsby. I swear it could tune itself. I wonder how many people have owned it or played it or how many hits have been written on it. Few maybe since it looks like it'd been left leaning on a garage wall for about 20 years. I picked it up and wrote Walter the Assaulter in about 5 minutes flat. Just gorgeous. I eventually gave it away to a dealer for $700 to pay an international phone bill after our manager bailed. Around the same time I was selling B's Vox Continental and a former Mighty Lemon Drop phoned me about it in Los Angeles and in the course of our conversation, Kirk Lake was mentioned, referenced somehow, he'd made Lake's acquaintance in London and Lake since devised this Happy Shopper thing. Small world. Big people. Appliance? That's an appliance.
2) How many shoes do you own?
Maybe more than the quantity is that they come in pairs. They're in various rooms in pairs not all in the same place. I know a professional gambler, a card counting accountant banned sort of, from a couple of places in Vegas in his heyday. Now he uses his amazing numeral literacy to riddle kids and his dinner guests... "If you had a 50 pairs of shoes in your closet, one hundred shoes, how many shoes would you have to pull out of the closet to be absolutely certain of getting a complete pair?"
3) Thinking about only what you are wearing now and including your watch, jewellery and glasses if you wear them, how much would it cost me to get dressed up just like you?
Well it's 1993 and I don't wear glasses yet. Don't really own a wristwatch, I have no need for a sense of time. Saint Jude pendant is an unappraised heirloom. The patron saint of hopeless cases his help a multi-generational need in the family. Since virtually everything else I am wearing is a piss poor Nudie Cohn knock off from some thrift hypermarket or other, you're talking about a few dollars sufficing. Shirt aside. This shirt cost $40 from Long Beach vintage store Meow. It eventually gets ruined by the our laundry service but I couldn't complain because I'd insisted that I'd found it in a Thrift store in Orange for $3. The tan leather jacket, from my father-in-laws closet so that cost me a fortune of sorts. Wore it in the G. Love video I starred in. don't know whether it or the mutton chops got me the job.
4) What are you going to be eating for dinner tonight?
No, nothing new tonight, we played at the Doll Hut last night so we went to Belisle's in Garden Grove for breakfast this morning and ordered the Texas Sized Breakfast, what else would you? That's a dozen eggs and a 64oz steak. We'll be eating that for days. No coincidence that I've put 10 inches onto my waistline here in 10 years.
5) What is the most amount you have ever spent on a bottle of wine or other alcoholic beverage and when and where was it?
Somewhere in Loughbrough in the UK I think. I ordered a Screwdriver. The vodka was dribbled across the bottom of the glass, then an entire bottle of Britvic Orange poured in on top. No ice. A treat for sure. That felt like in so many ways the most expensive drink of all times. All the late night Champagne, and Kettel One cocktails and the unraveling conversations and unpredictable behaviour later. No one counts the cost of those. But there's
6) What and where is your favourite shop?
For clothes, I really like Meow on 4th in Long Beach. Vinyl Solution in Huntingdon Beach. They put the Neighborhood Freaks EP on their wall! Later I'll like the Melrose Trading Post, Fingerprints lots of places. Like to shop.
7) How do you get around town?
Cars. Someone was leaving for Japan and they sold me their Toyota Supra for $200, it's a crazy fast thing really. Lots of bad crap technology around the dashboard. 5 Cylinder engine with some design problems I think. Electric everything. The first time it broke down on me was in the middle of a busy intersection in Compton. Just died. It was a car from the future. If the future loses every sense of style.
8) Where is your favourite place to holiday?
Someone else's house. Preferably by the Ocean.
Ron & Nancy's 10 song The Neighbourhood Freaks EP, the single Chad and the collection 'I Don't Recall the Songs of Ron & Nancy' are available now from the SideCartel.
