Kookoonauts call it quits. The Streets of Bakersfield, and the jealous rich boys, were to much to deal with. Why did they hate the Kookoonauts, I have no clue, just another band having fun.
Us fans are sad to see them go. Bakersfield has a lot of really mean people. Carmen Hit List, The Condemned, Allied and tons of other promising Bako-bands were driven out by jealous and mean hunks of dookey.
Here is a quote from Buck for tis news!
“Excuse me, I think I've got a heartache
There's an aching deep inside
And it just won't be denied
Excuse me, I think I've got a heartache
And I'd better say goodbye before I cry
LAST SHOW FAN PHOTO:
KOOKOONAUTS
Location:Bakersfield, California, United States
Bakersfield has always been known for its' leading the way in music styles and variations, often called Nashville West, and the Bakersfield Sound. It is true with Country and even more so with Punk Rock and Ska music. Here the pioneers of this new Rural Punk/Ska style music Bakersfield the KOO-KOO-NAUTS!a local punk/ska band,Cowpunk and to me and band that took its name from a space theme board game, NEW data: playing at RoboBank Arena, Nick Belardes Hockey Record, new Rural Punk record in the works. Bryan just out of hospital from attack that nearly killed him.
Kookoonauts dad brakes silence about mean joke, On Bakotopia.com Ray, barrowing KKN Bakotopia page. Brad, whom bad mouthed and insulted Kookoonauts, seems to have issues and deep hate. His dad would ground him from playing KOOKKOONAUTS just before each show and then finally bought him a new drum set if he would quit the band. This was just before a big show so James came over from the Night Crawlers to cover, he hated this' he loved the Night Crawlers . Judging by the mean spirited venum in their postings, you can see they make the fake band out of pure mean-ness. Nick, You met Bryan, he has depression, never an ego! That was a lie. All their posts were lies. Get on the KOOKOONAUTS myspace and see all the really good reviews after Rabo-Bank. The fake band may have venimous insults, but the real band was getting orders for CD's and DVD's from all over the world. All the Nauts have had many girl friends for many years, the fakes well, you can see they appear challenged in that area, even though they are really rich. It is funny how they were so mean in their comments and their big joke, and they put "Christians" on their "Myspace" and the fat Morman - his family, what-ever! This whole thing caused my sons' band to brake up because of all the lies, the worst was the one told to me by the dean of students at Stockdale High, these mean bullies harraassed and tormented the kids and may have conspired to have them attacked at Jerry's, the BPD thought so, I mean read their mean posts! The dean made a joke out of it , after agreeing with me that the actual conspiracy to do all this junk happened at school. Anyway, I was not going to say anything until I read Kurt's mom's letter. She had just gone out and spent a lot, 100s, of money on KOOKOONAUTS shirts just before this happened, and she was just out of a job going to a new one and was strapped for cash, now the shirts just sit along with hundreds of Bumper stickers I bought, not to mention the cd's and DVDs. Bryan won't even talk about the band and James wishes it never happened. I thought it was just high school hijinks, now I know it was evel' pure evil. The "Nots" are not fake Nauts, it is my openion that they are more likely fake Christians, If Brad's dad thought this whole thing was funny, perhaps after I recover from my illness I can discuss this funny Morman joke with him at the Karate Dojo of his. choice.
kookoonauts of bakersfield Part 1
KOO KOO FOR THE KOOKOONAUTS. Part 1
By Johnny Davenport
“Bakersfield has always been known for its' leading the way in music styles and variations, often called Nashville West, and the Bakersfield Sound. It is true with Country and even more so with Punk Rock and Ska music. Here the pioneers of this new Rural Punk/Ska style music show their stuff in a rare but very high quality recording. Sit back and listen to the new sounds of Bakersfield with the KOO-KOO-NAUTS!
Every once in a while you find a band that you connect with and really are taken by their style, songs, singing or musicianship. In my case I got lucky, it was a local punk/ska band, and to me they had all the above in abundant amounts and they played somewhere in town, or neighboring towns almost every weekend. I have been following the band for quite some time now. I took pleasure in researching them, and on several occasions interviewing them. Now I take pride in sharing my favorite band with you, and band that took its name from a space theme board game, "The KooKooNauts".”
To understand who and what the KooKooNauts are, you have to understand Bakersfield punk and punk history. Using back issues of Blackboard Magazine I have come up with a fairly accurate background and lead-in to the Kookoonaut story.
Punk comes to Bakersfield a little late, but no worse for the wait. Bands existed through the `70s and `80s. Then, according to punk historian Jeremy Cravens, "In 1990 a club called Bam Bam's opened in Bakersfield. Bam Bam's promoted, and put on punk shows every weekend. In this Gulf War Era, Bakersfield punk thrived." Craven's Bakersfield Scene reports that "Bakersfield had it's own style of hardcore (punk)," and his list of the better bands of the early 90s were as follows: Big Jed, Primer Gray, Hossbrutten, Chaotic Evil, Midget Toss, Active Ingredients, and Six Feet Under. According to Billy S. The first wave of Bakersfield punk, from roughly the same time as the Ramones, Germs, Misfits, Dead Kennedys, etc., produced local bands like Teen Suicide, The Lizards, The Contaminators, The Gags and more. After that first wave ended, the bands became too numerous to mention. There was the original Primer Grey, with the infamous Bodie Chavis, Steve Crooks, Todd Short and Dave Butler, and the song that was on everyone's lips at the time, "Hey You! What You Lookin' At?" There were the Feelers, Big Jed, Fatal Vision, and lots more.
When I discovered hardcore punk in 2002, the punk scene in Bakersfield revolved, for the most part, around the underground cavern that is the basement theater of Jerry's Pizza on Chester in downtown Bakersfield. Jerry's is reminiscent of the 1963 Cavern Club in Britain where the Beatles began their career. The atmosphere is amazing: three black wooden staircases lead you into a punk underworld; this blackened, brick-walled underground cavern comes alive as darkness falls outside. The bright white stage lights break the underground darkness with silhouettes of majestic mohawks and liberty-spiked punks who cast thunder from the stage as the mosh pit raves like a fevered tribal war dance. From above creeps the smell of Jerry's famous pizza, breaking the historic musk below. Above the cavern is the actual pizzeria. In the bar-like register with its glass circular pizza warmer, a slice is a mere buck fifty. There are a couple of wooden booth tables for your dining pleasure, two roof-mounted televisions and a really frightening clown gumball machine. Occasionally the oxygen bar man is there, doing his flavored air thing.
Jerry came to Downtown Bakersfield in 1992 with old country traditions for pizza baked on a stone hearth. The best part, though, is the thunderous outpouring of sound from the bands below in the cavern. This is the ultimate in dining atmosphere for the punk and early rock music connoisseur. If you want to relive those early 1960s days at the Cavern Club, come to a punk show some night at Jerry's. The most active current (JUNE 2002) punk bands in Bakersfield included these: Active Ingredients, The Pin Ups, Crimson Stained Nails, Missing in Action (later renamed Urban Regression and then KooKooNauts), The Condemned, The Allied and Commotion.
Of the original 90s bands, only Active Ingredients still plays on a regular basis. They have a new drummer and several CDs out on a local label and are reportedly in the middle of recording a new full-length CD at Bakersfield's own Pig Studios. The Condemned played frequently at Jerry's Pizza and occasionally at the Porterville Veterans' Park Festivals; they write most of their own songs. Missing in Action often opens (plays warm-up) for many out-of-town bands at Jerry's, (They also play Studio 45 and the Porterville Veterans' park festivals). The Condemned and Missing in Action are the more hardcore bands of the Bakersfield punk community. They are high-powered and in your face. The mosh pits get smoke'n with these youngsters. After I got over being scared of them, I really enjoyed their driving melodies and aggressively charged, screaming lyrics.
The next period in Bakersfield punk was a bit darker, punk was pushed out of the music scene by a music called "new metal". Such music was, or of, the old fat guys that aren't that good, so they shave their heads, grow a goatee and tune their guitar to "Drop D". Guys that aren't real hot guitar slingers even sound good. Open turnings are strange that way. Take the early blues slide players; the were good on standard turnings. But when Robert Johnson came back from the cross roads with the open "Spanish" tuning he changed the world. Several punk-like bands made it OK during this period, and several sprung up. The notable ones being Active Ingredients, Crimson Stained Nails, Bury the Hatchet and of coarse, the KooKooNauts.
Tue Nov 16, 2004 7:32 pm
Subject: new psychobilly band l
‘ Psychobilly has now come to Bakersfield, in the form of a
young band called " Night Crawlers",. Thus far the Night Crawlers
have played at CSUB, Jerry's Pizza and a party or two and people love
them. The trio is still in High school but their music is very
mature. This is an important event in the history of Bakersfield
and American music and I urge any music fan to come experience this
emerging art, free show at Downtown Records ( Jake 324-5235) Sunday,
Nov.21 2003, from 4-6 PM. Also playing are the KooKooNauts, another
enjoyable young band.
http://www.myspace.com/nightcrawlers
Many people were still koo koo for the KooKooNauts, a band that had now evolved into something new, different and amazingly good, sort of a Rancid meets Richie Vallins. The lead Guitar and vocalist had developed a master of both crafts that was both unique and tasteful. He still kept a bit of that rough punk edge from the early years, and they are still in high school with years to mature.
The KooKooNauts went through several transformation during this period. The original members met in drum line and included a bass player named Kurt. Kurt basically coached through the learning process to a mastery of the instrument by the guitar player and front man Bryan Gunter H. Kurt now slaps the four string like a pro.
Bryan is a self-taught musician. In elementary school he taught himself how to read music and within only a few weeks tried out and made the school band where his instructor (Jr. high / elementary) Mr. Bar was amazed at the speed of his mastery of woodwinds.
A few short weeks later he tried out and made the cut for the prestigious Kern County Honor Band and to top things off, made first chair over students much his senior in both age and experience. Later Bryan switched to the bass and ended up playing at the massive Centennial Gardens at a halftime show for the Blitz football team. It was no stretch for him to jump from the bass to the guitar and from there it was just a lot of hard work and playing shows by the dozen.
James H., Bryan's older brother by two years also came from drum line and moved over to the set and his speed and technique filled the bands rhythm section with thunder. The three boys had been in a band called Urban Regression that had also played often in the local Bakersfield venues.
That band broke up as the elder brother James went to drum with the local Psychobilly sensation "The Night Crawlers". Later, a Halloween festival at CSUB needed more bands so some of the Urban Regression formed the KooKooNauts to play the show. The band did so well that they stayed together. Several of the Night Crawlers filtered in and out of the KooKooNauts. The two bands often played shows together on the same bill. This was a mutual beneficial relationship, often yielding fairly large crowds at shows at local venues such as Jerry's, the Gate-Boiler Room , and Down Town Records and so on.
One of the shows went nuts when the large crowd was accosted by a mad man in a guerrilla suit with light flashing red lights as eye balls. The crowd went wild and a fight started on the floor between some street punks as the KooKooNauts played on. When the fight was broken up by a bouncer the apeman mounted the Night Crawler's stand-up bass and started humping it feverishly. It was one of the funniest things I had ever seen in my life and I laughed so hard I nearly wet myself.
It was this time period when both bands recorded their first demo Cds with a school friend, John T. John was in a band called Amigo Diaz (sp?) with the old Drummer from the Condemned. Amigo Diaz also played on the same billing with the KooKooNauts and Night Crawlers from time to time. The KooKooNauts sold over 300 of the demo CDs for a buck each with the first two weeks of its creation.
Later they began giving the two song CD demo away free and as many as a thousand have been burned and distributed locally. The songs were "Inevitable", a song warning of ‘judgment day’ on those whom destroy nature. “Inevitable” was a local hit for a time around the high school and at shows where dozens of folks would often come up and sing along. At one point even the Night Crawlers covered the tune. My favorite part is the lead-in: "humans are the parasite, earth is our host, wide spread panic from coast to coast." Amazing Chuck Berry-type guitar riffs rounds out this great tune.
Another song of that demo is "Take Me to Serious,” a passionate punk love song that was quite the favorite among high school kids struck with the love bug.
One day there was a falling out and the bands no longer functioned together and the three bands went their separate ways. It was never clear to me what had separated the bands but it was a bit tragic. At this time the KooKooNauts added a keyboard player named John and they played shows with him for a while and the sound was very interesting. They drew a lot of positive attention to the band. One day however John's mother made him quit the Kookoonuats. It was speculated he quit because of bad grades but who knows. This happened with an earlier drummer as well.
After the keyboard player departed the band signed up at Bakersfield Sound Studios for another demo cd and I have not heard the status on this project just yet. Last night at the Corner Stone Church, the stained glass was rattling. Hardcore Bands from near and far were laying down the laws with the thunder of Gibson and Fender guitars, and earth-shaking drum flurries and rumbling bass lines. Man this stuff was awesome! Crimson Stained Nails, Active Ingredients, The KooKooNauts and several other bands were rockin' the hollowed ground. The KooKooNauts played a new set, dropping the usual burning rendition of Joan Jett's "Bad Reputation" for the Misfits "Last Caress" and dropping "Inevitable" for a new Celtic sounding number about medieval knights.
The other parts of the set were unchanged and they played one of my favorites "The March" and you will have to pick up their new CD to hear that for yourselves. As the night wore on it was brought up by the KooKooNauts that some one or some group has been pulling down their posters and shredding them on their front lawn and throwing raw eggs all over their car and house. If you think this sucks you are correct, but what was worse is that Active Ingredients was sited and fined $147.00 for posting their flyers. They speculated that Jerry's or Nate may have reported them and filed a complaint.
They we called hypocrite for doing so as they post more posters than any one and post them with permanent postal tape. The KooKooNauts speculated that it may have been some of their old friends from the bands they used to play shows with but don't know for sure. I look forward to attending many KooKooNauts shows in the future and hey, hope to see you there!
July 9th. Mohawk Revolution "British Punk Invasion, in retrospect."
By Johnny Davenport. July, 10th, 2005 ( Reporter: The Bakersfield
Scene)
Mohawk Revolution "British Punk Invasion is a tour put on by World
Wide Concerts in association with J Rock Entertainment, Guerlla Urban
Marketing and Libertalia Marketing. And featured bands from both the
UK and California, USA. The Skulls (United Kingdom), The Partisans
(United Kingdom) American Made (New Port Beach, CA) The Koo-Koo-Nauts
(Bakersfield, CA) Willie Psycho (El Cajon, California). Also, several
special guest bands. Tour date locations included: Newport Beach,
CA, Tijuana, Mexico, Irvine, CA, Santa Cruz, CA and Bakersfield, CA.
It was the July 9th Bakersfield show that I was able to attend and
hence review.
I didn't think I would ever see it, the Jerry's punk resurrection.
As I drove south down Chester Ave. About 6:30 PM it was still hot and
sunny, I didn't really expect much but as soon as 22 street off the
178 I started to see them, a steady migration of colored hair denim
vested -stud gladden punks, majestic Mohawks reminiscent of a time
gone by, not even at this years Van's Warp Tour a week before did I
ever see such a site. As I got closer to Jerry's I could see this was
something really big. I went around 18th street and lucky for me and
my old Nova someone was just pulling out so I slipped right in.
There were sever levels of Punkdom surrounding the front orifice of
the venue. In the ally there were several clusters of various
subspecies of punk, Skater punks with their boards, Straight edge-
with their XXXs on their hands, hardcore- with their old schools
hawks, liberty spikes and vests, T-shirt punks with "Rancid and
Ramones T-shirts, Skin Heads, and the ever present street punks
drinks barfing and otherwise hang'n out.
I had purchased my ticket the day before at Downtown Records for ten
bucks, I gave my ticket to the awesome looking babe at the door and
was in. It was a show where you can't go in and out, sort of like
L.A. shows, this works well and it is safer and more people tend to
watch the bands. Since I could not go in and out, I opted to do some
hang'n out and some other stuff before going right in. Unnoticed I
cruised around the scene, listened in and made some rounds. Downtown
records was abuzz with conversation and up and down the 19th street
corner. It was a lot like the punk scene from a few years back,
really vast.
Most of the time when you get big acts from out of town a lot of
people are just hanging out, but this time it was different, most
everybody came in. I bought a slice of world famous Pizza, a cola
and down the stairs I went. I got there as the local band "The Koo-
koo-nauts" were setting up. The Cavern was about have backed and as
the sound check was going on people were hustling down the stairs
with pizza slices giggling with each step down these historic steps.
Jerry's ambiance has stayed fairly close to it's classic feel and
this quote from a 2002 Black Board Magazine arcle pretty muck sums it
up :"The underground cavern that is the basement theater of Jerry's
Pizza on Chester in downtown Bakersfield. Jerry's is reminiscent of
the 1963 Cavern Club in Britain where the Beatles began their career.
The atmosphere is amazing: three black wooden staircases lead you
into a punk underworld; this blackened, brick-walled underground
cavern comes alive as darkness falls outside. The bright white stage
lights break the underground darkness with silhouettes of majestic
mohawks and liberty-spiked punks who cast thunder from the stage as
the mosh pit raves like a fevered tribal war dance. From above creeps
the smell of Jerry's famous pizza, breaking the historic musk below.
Above the cavern is the actual pizzeria. In the bar-like register
with its glass circular pizza warmer, a slice is a mere buck fifty.
There are a couple of wooden booth tables for your dining pleasure,
two roof-mounted televisions and a really frightening clown gum ball
machine. Occasionally the oxygen bar man is there, doing his flavored
air thing.>Jerry came to Downtown Bakersfield in 1992 with old
country traditions for pizza baked on a stone hearth. The best part,
though, is the thunderous outpouring of sound from the bands below in
the cavern. This is the ultimate in dining atmosphere for the punk
and early rock music connoisseur. If you want to relive those early
1960s days at the Cavern Club, come to a punk show some night at
Jerry's" (Black Board 2002).
posted by UNDERGROUND at 1:34 PM
