Johnny Otis

IT'S BECOMING readily apparent that one salient characteristic of the first batch of Los Angeles bands (let's leave those lovable beach punks out of this) is a willingness to draw on the traditional sounds and spirit of early rock 'n' roll and its antecedents. It stems, I suspect, in part from the twin desires to avoid being stamped as clone bands mindlessly following the London/New York leader and to separate themselves from the Eagles-Jackson-Linda-mellow-plastic record industry image we all know and loathe. As the NME's recent feature on X insightfully pointed out, you had to go the punk route to be a real rock 'n' roll band in Los Angeles.