Once upon a time, or circa early ’70s to be somewhat precise, there was a band called the Imperial Dogs. They were a bunch of South Bay (Redondo Beach, etc.) fellas, a pack of long-tressed, rockily dressed rock-loving rockhounds/party boys and pot-smoking wildmen and, actually, totally ace musicians in a balls-out, true-rock, rock-rock-rockin’ way…
And this is their story, or a rough impression of it:
At the time here in Southern California, about 1974, say, there wasn’t a whole lot of context for people to be bands or be in bands; not a lot of places to play –– a few but not many, and the ones that did exist had some pretty restrictive rules and hep-requirements, like you had to be signed to a major label or you had to be a mostly stupid cover band playing all the stupid big hits of the day. Now, L.A. at that time had already come to be thought of as the “center of the music industry,” and it was, in a way, seeing how the best recording studios and producers were working here, all your heaviest session honchos, most of the major labels, of course, and etc. You don’t need to be told again that hoary old story about how the “music industry” has been a defining presence here in Los Angeles but that there was simply no place for the actual bands and musicians here; you just couldn’t get the time of day unless you had already made it elsewhere and were a proven, you know, chart-toppin’ phenom and big, big money-makin’ machine.
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