MOG

(Third in a series)

Kim Fowley was the manager (creator? exploiter?) of the all-female group The Runaways, where a young Joan Jett got her start. But after losing his grip on them, he discovered a new group, playing around L.A., to promote - The Quick, a powerpop quintet which was the first band to put a young Rembrandt-to-be Danny Wilde on record. (Stage name? You betcha! Danny was born Danny Thomas, but that was also the name of the '50s TV star of Make Room For Daddy (also, Marlo's father), so for rather obvious reasons he abandoned that name. The Quick (whose MOG artist page can be found under the inaccurate moniker "Quick") played L.A. clubs like the Whiskey A-Go-Go and the Starwood Club, and opened at various venues for The Ramones (pic below),

Van Halen, Starz and Crack The Sky. They landed a (crappy - is there any other kind?) first-record deal with Mercury Records and went into the studio with ex-Sparks member Earle Mankey producing, which probably thrilled them no end, being heavily influenced by Sparks and other Anglo-rock. And Voila!, in 1976 that first-and-only record, Mondo Deco (pictured above), hit the racks. And died there. Mondo Deco is a bit of a strange bird, with a young Danny Wilde functioning as lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist, sounding like he just hit puberty last week (unless Kim Fowley wanted the tape sped up so they sounded even younger). One of the best songs from that LP can be heard in Comments. The group's lead guitarist, Steven Hufsteter, wrote all of their original material that was recorded and thus seemed to dominate the group. Danny Wilde's songwriting skills might've been undeveloped at this point but would greatly surpass Steven's efforts later on, IMHO. Mondo Deco has never seen a CD release. Maybe someday. After that first record, The Quick spent some of 1977 recording a series of demos used to pitch them to Elektra Records, which never took the bait. The Elektra demos did see a limited fan-club-only EP release, titled Alpha/Beta and seems to be extremely rare - no copies have appeared on eBay for years. It's limited release happened in 1978, the same year the band broke up. End of the story? Not quite. The demos they did for Mercury, the Elektra demos, and three tracks recorded live were released in the UK in 2003 on a CD entitled Untold Rock Stories: What's amusing about this is that I think these demos sound so much better than the commercially released LP. The future for The Quick members? Steven Hufsteter went on to The Cruzados, drummer Danny Benair played with The Weirdos and Prince-supported The Three O'Clock. Danny, who had several more stops to make before The Rembrandts were born, would go on, dragging bassist Ian Ainsworth along, into his new band where he first played with fellow Rembrandt Phil Solem, in a little group called Great Buildings. Which will, of course, be the next post...