Seminal OC Pop-Punks Big Drill Car Rev Engine Again After 16 Years

By WALEED RASHIDI

Thursday, August 7, 2008 - 3:05 pm

Now, this seems VERY OBVIOUS but please do not post your answer as a comment to the blog, send us a message so its private and you don't give everyone else the answers ... OK??

The person who answers the most questions correctly will win a pair of tickets to the August 13 show at Fitzgerald's - The first show back ... If there is a tie, the winner will be determined by the order of the messages I receive.

1. Big Drill Car released 4 full length records and one EP ... What are the names of the 5 records and what labels were they ORIGINALLY released on?

SMALL BLOCK - VARIENT RECORDS (later re-released on CRUZ), TYPE THING - CRUZ RECORDS, BATCH - CRUZ RECORDS, TOURED - HEADHUNTER/CARGO RECORDS, NO WORSE FOR THE WEAR - HEADHUNTER/CARGO RECORDS

2. What is written in the matrix of the VINYL RELEASES of Small Block, Type Thing and Batch? (This must have been a hard question as only 3 people got it right).

SMALL BLOCK - AND SHE'LL SPIN, TYPE THING - POINTS ANYONE, BATCH - NOTHING WRITTEN OTHER THAN CATALOG NUMBERS

3. OK - A coupla questions here about the artwork of the band. Who is responsible for MOST of the artwork for the band (albums covers, t-shirts, flyers, etc). What is the image on the cover of "Type Thing." Who/What is the driver of the Big Drill Car (on insert of Small Block, on the new poster and our default picture for the moment).

BOB THOMSON IS THE ARTIST RESPONSIBLE FOR MOST OF THE ART. THE IMAGE ON THE FRONT OF TYPE THING IS: A MAGNAFIED IMAGE OF A RECORD NEEDLE PLAYING A RECORD. THE DEVIL DOG IS THE DRIVER OF THE BIG DRILL CAR

4. More questions about the records, this time about the music: a). who did the GUITAR lead on the song ICK? b). Who is Rich Cranium? c). In the song LET ME WALK, there is a vocal error that is left on the record. Frank sang the wrong phrase and it doesn't make sense. You don't have to know what the original lyrics were to get this error. What's the error?

THE GUITAR LEAD DONE ON ICK WAS DONE BY: RICH CRANIUM, RICH CRANIUM IS STEPHEN EGERTON, THE VOCAL ERROR IN LET ME WALK IS: "CAN I HAVE TO MAKE IT BLACK AND WHITE."

5. LAST QUESTION: This question is about nicknames. Each guy in the band has one ... Some have more than one, some of their nicknames are used constantly and others are rarely used at all anymore. I'm even going to throw in some extra nicknames to throw you off a little bit ... All nicknames will be of people who are band related in some way. I know this is difficult, guess, go for it:

We are looking for the nick names of: Bob, Danny, Frank and Mark.

Choose from: Hollywood, Ribeye, Padman, The Kid, Rhino, Santa, Wee Bah, Midtown, Two-Thirds

NICKNAMES: BOB-WEE BAH, FRANK - THE KID, MARK - SANTA, DANNY - HOLLYWOOD, MIDTOWN and PADMAN... THE OTHER NON-BAND MEMBER NICKNAMES ARE: A FRIEND AND ROADIE IS - TWO-THIRDS, THE GUY WHO MADE UP THE NAME OF THE BAND IS RHINO, AND THE MANAGER IS RIBEYE.

THANKS FOR PLAYING.

THE WINNER: FERRETRAX!!!! He got every question right and was first to answer. Congrats to FERRETRAX!!!

Win a pair of tickets to the upcoming show at FITZGERALD'S in Huntington Beach, CA on AUG 13.

We have been trying to think of a good way to give away a pair of tickets to someone who wasn't able to get tickets before the show sold out. We've decided on a Big DRILL Quiz. We will post a series of questions through the myspace page (in the blog section). The person who gets the most correct answers will win a pair of tickets. In the event of a tie, the winner will be the first message I open ... You must be 21 or older to get into the venue, so I guess you should be 21 or older to do the quiz.

Questions will all be band related. Almost every answer can be found on one of the records themselves, or maybe in my volumous "bio blog" of last month.

Quiz will start on MONDAY JULY 28. There will be approximately 10 questions.

Please feel free to ask questions here.

Thanks 

1987 – Frank Daly and Mark Arnold were in the SoCal punk band MIA. Frank was playing bass and doing backing vocals and Mark playing guitar. When MIA was not touring Frank and Mark would get together with friends Bob Thomson and Danny Marcroft and play music. They played a lot of covers in those days: "I'm Not a Loser" by The Descendents and "Too Drunk to F*ck" by the Dead Kennedys are 2 that stand out in my mind. Aside from playing covers, the guys started writing some original songs. Later in 1987 when MIA broke up, the guys decided to form a band and call themselves Big Drill Car (name originated by Boris while watching a Sci-Fi movie about a large car with a drill bit on the front of it drilling into the center of the Earth) and started playing some local shows.  Halloween 1987 being their first official gig. The first ones I remember were at Night Moves and Meadowlark Country Club in Huntington Beach along with Bogart's in Long Beach. As Frank's roommate at the time, I offered to start helping the band by booking shows and taking care of some day-to-day items that needed to be dealt with … Eventually I became their manager. The band was practicing in our garage and hanging out at our house, we really became Big DRILL Car headquarters for a while. The address on the original version of Small Block's liner notes was our place, Big Drill Car Head Quarters (although we never called it that)

1988 – Frank and Mark had met the Montreal band THE DOUGHBOYS while touring with MIA. Once John Kastner from the Doughboys heard the Big Drill Car tape with early versions of all the songs on Small Block he asked if Big Drill Car wanted to play some shows together and do a tour. Big Drill Car opened for the Doughboys on a short US/Canadian Tour in 1988. Later in 1988 the guys went to Radio Tokyo in Venice to properly record their first 6 song demo tape (which later became Small Block) with Richard Andrews producing. Kastner told us to get the demo tape to a guy called Kane, that Kane was putting records out and had helped get the Doughboys record released in the States. Kane had worked at a record pressing plant called Macola and dealt with some of the NWA guys before NWA had self-funded their first record. We contacted Kane and sent him the 6 song tape. He loved it and wanted to release it. Actually he wanted to release a full length record but, at that time, the band didn't have any more songs recorded. So Small Block was born. Kane said we could put it on our own label and that he would fund it, so, I think Bob came up with the name Varient Records, and Small Block was Varient Record's first and only release. With only 6 songs, we thought it would be fun to put all the songs on one side of the vinyl and leave the other side blank. This was not only cheaper to manufacture but kind of interesting, even though we knew that Bad Religion had already done it.
Another great band that the guys met through their touring with MIA was The Descendents. Stephan, the guitar player for Descendents and ALL, was a budding producer and offered to produce Big Drill Car and offered to help me by showing me some of the items that I should be putting together for the band: Like a press kit, biography and photograph. I had no idea that I needed this stuff. So, from the 20^th Street house, we started sending records out to people hoping to get some reviews, so we would have some press to put in a press kit. And, you know what; we got some good press right off the bat. CMJ gave a great mention of the EP, plus Flipside, Maximumrocknroll, BAM and others, plus the live shows were drawing more people and getting reviews too. Soon we actually had a press kit.
Also at this time the guys were very eager to play, especially out of town. They would play anywhere within an 8 hour drive. So we did weekends in San Francisco playing many shows at the Covered Wagon, Gilman Street, Berkeley Square and in Santa Barbara at The Anaconda, in Petaluma at the River Theatre, got to play with fIREHOSE and a few others. Liz at the Covered Wagon (later went on to be "Rotundra" with GWAR) loved BDC and hooked us up with some great shows (before they could headline on their own) like SOUL SIDE and NOFX. Those weekends were always fun.

1989 – It seemed time to get a proper record out; the guys had new songs and were ready to record. About this same time the band ALL had debuted on Greg Ginn's new label CRUZ Records. Greg Ginn was still a partner with Chuck Dukowski in SST Records but Greg wanted to do some different bands with CRUZ and decided to start his own label on the side. CRUZ seemed like the perfect home for BDC. They were friends with ALL, fans of SST, Stephan was eager to produce their records and it was in Long Beach so we could drive up there and talk to them. Ron Coleman was running CRUZ for Greg Ginn at the time. Aside from running the label, Ron was booking ALL too. So I would regularly call Ron and ask for promoter phone numbers and hook ups to play with ALL or to book Big Drill Car across the country. I was also talking to Ron about getting BDC on CRUZ and about getting him and Ginn out to see Big Drill Car. One day I called Ron to bug him for some tour contacts and he said "Do you know anyone who would want to work at CRUZ?" My answer was, "YES ME!" So we set up the most interesting job interview I've ever had. First off, I picked Greg Ginn up from SST. You have to understand that I was/am a huge Black Flag and SST fan, so just meeting him was pretty exciting at the time. I picked him up from SST, drove him to his apartment in Long Beach and we had a double meeting: The first half of the meeting was a job interview (I got the job); the second half of the meeting was getting BDC signed to CRUZ (that happened too). The fall out from this was that, as a label employee, it was a conflict of interest to manage a band on the label. So I had to give up managing Big Drill Car if I wanted the job. But working at the label I still got to be involved with Big Drill Car. So I took the job and was able to get paid while still being involved with Big Drill Car.

Later that year Cruz released "…Type Thing" and Big Drill Car took off again for some US/Canadian tours.

1990 – Small Block was released by Cruz and released on CD for the first time.

1991 – Big Drill Car is back in the studio recording BATCH. Batch came out later that year, and, like Big Drill Car did, they went on tour and tour and tour. At some point on the Batch Tour, they played and recorded their set at the recently defunct CBGB in New York City. This record would later become the "Toured" album on Cargo Records.

1992 – At some point in 1992, Big Drill Car were poised to sign with a big management company when Bob Thomson felt like he needed a change and decided to quit Big Drill Car and join the band Xtra Large. Bob's last show was the Viva CRUZ show at the Palace in Hollywood (June 6, 1992). There is an amazing video of this show floating around (never released). Bob is more animated in this video than I have ever seen him before.

Enter new bass player Darren Morris. Darren was a long time fan and a super nice guy. I was living in San Diego at this time but remember talking to Frank about Darren's try-out and Frank said, "He knew every song and played them all perfectly. He's a great fit and a great guy." Danny Marcroft also left sometime in 92/93 for reasons that I do not know. (Correction from Jamie Reidling): Keith Fallis joined soon after. Keith had been in the band Carnival Art.

1993 – Saw the release of TOURED – A Live Album – recorded on the Batch tour at CBGB. This was released on Cargo Records.

1994 – Big Drill Car returns with their final studio album: No Worse For The Wear – also released by Cargo records. They set out again on US/Canadian tours. (Correction from Jamie Reidling) Keith's significant other was pregnant and had a baby. Keith left the band and moved to Arizona to be a daddy. Frank's long time school friend (and long time friend of the band) Jamie Reidling was asked to fill in at the last minute and lucky for Big Drill Car, Jamie was able to fill in, he knew the songs and he fit in very well.  Jamie had only 2 weeks to prepare for the tour and he was awesome. This time, on the "No Worse For The Wear" Tours,  aside from headlining many dates on their own, they were asked to play with old friends The Offspring (who were getting huge at this point). The Offspring had always been huge BDC fans and had called us back at the 20^th street house asking if they could open for BDC. We said yes because we liked Dexter and we liked their band … The Offspring returned the favor and I will never forget it. My personal opinion is that "Friend Of Mine" should have been the biggest song in the world in 1994. I was actually managing Big Drill Car again at this time and tried my best to get Cargo's radio department to get them some airplay. Cargo had some good people there at the time and I had high hopes, but nothing materialized. I also shopped a demo with Friend of Mine and a few other songs to major labels … Actually setting meetings with A&R people I had met during a bidding war over another band I was managing, getting in their offices and playing the tape for them, but I had no luck. No one I spoke to had the same passion for Big Drill Car or Friend of Mine as I did. In the end, it was very frustrating. I have always thought that Big Drill Car was the best band in the world. They wrote the best songs, played the best live shows and were the nicest guys throughout. I'll never understand why they were not as big as Green Day or any of the other bands that they seemed to influence.

2007 – Finds Frank married with 3 kids and living out of California. Mark is an accomplished sound man and recording engineer doing sound for such bands as: The Breeders, The Lemonheads, The Jesus and Mary Chain and recording tons of smaller bands. When he's not on tour (he's always on tour) he lives in Southern California and plays guitar in Tan Analog. Danny is still in the Orange County as is Bob. Bob's married with 2 kids and has many "rock notches" on his belt and has been involved in some amazing projects such as: The Joe Doe Thing, Smile, Scott Weiland's solo work and the Cable Guy soundtrack to name a few. Bob's rocking the free world and riding bikes! I've been told that Darren Morris now has a successful construction contracting business in Orange County. I have no idea about Keith Fallis. Jamie Reidling is still in the Orange County area, still playing drums, still in a million bands at once – currently (last I heard) he is playing drums in: US Bombs, Die Hunns, Pharmacist's Son and The Relationship.

2008-Finds me working with my old friends again, Frank, Mark, Bob and Danny. We've all been talking (typing actually, like an email knitting circle). There are a few loose ends I hope to help them tie up …

I started this bio in 2007, before I started working with Big Drill Car again. It started out to be a Big DRILL Car bio, but kind of became a first person narrative. Not sure if that's good or bad. I think it gives some insight, but maybe not all the facts that are needed. It's definitely a little thin on the facts between 1992 and 1995 as I was in San Diego at that time. I was asked and I offered to write a comprehensive Big Drill Car bio for the website a few years ago … I've started it many times and never finished it … There are a lot of holes in this bio/narrative and please feel free to correct me, add things, take out things.

Alright, first of all, welcome; I'm Sam, 27, live in St. Louis and I "run" the bigdrillcar.com website. Frank, Mark and Bob all visit the website so hopefully they will drop by the Myspace page as well.

Now, on to the topic... So I'm listening to the Dickies the other day (My Pop The Cop in particular) and I hear "Sacred Cow" in the lyrics. This immediatly strikes me as odd as I recall the BDC song "Thin White Line" also makes reference to Sacred Cow. I never had any clue what it meant and just wrote it off as Frank's crazy lyrics, but when I heard it in My Pop The Cop I knew it couldn't be coincidence, so I looked it up and found this:

Sacred Cow: A person or thing immune to criticism or questioning.

Compare it with the rest of the lyrics and it makes perfect sense, mystery solved and I learned something new. Thanks Frank. :)