I’ve only been to San Francisco a couple times. The first time was for a business trip that only allowed very minimal time to visit any record stores. I was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of amazing used records I found at Amoeba. I barely managed to struggle through the airport with an additional 40-50lbs of vinyl weight. A couple years later, I was able to get back there with my wife on our own vacation time. On that trip, we ventured into one smaller store on Haight that looked promising, but after some browsing; we had come up empty handed. (I think it was on the way to get some lunch, so hunger and the thought of cheap burritos probably stifled the record search a little!) Pretty much everything in the “Punk” section was either laughably over priced or common/unwanted titles that had obviously been sitting there for years. I was excited to find a very clean copy of Algebra Suicide’s Alpha Cue LP; which had been on my want list for a couple years at that point, but nothing else of interest reared its head. On the way to checkout, I stopped to flip through a small pile of 7”s on the counter. Dusty price tags and curled sleeve tops had me assume there was nothing to be found. I decided to buy the copy of Leather Nun’s Subterranean Records single for 50 cents and to take a chance on one by a local band called The Good Samaritans. That half dollar chance leads us to my second post on Controversial Trousers…
I had previously only found a couple of online mentions of the band or record, but I pieced that together to figure out where the Good Samaritans fit into the scheme of things. The first one was found was on a list of recording credits for Tom Mallon-McCorgray/Grifter. (Tom's website) He is/was a long time San Francisco recording studio owner/engineer who also performed in The American Music Club and a later line up of The Toiling Midgets. His website has a discography of records that he recorded or produced. Some of the credits have other names by them. I took this to mean other people who have recorded in his studio, but he did not personally engineer and/or produce. The Good Samaritans record notes: Engineered - Produced by Quentin Llorente (Direct Link) A search on Discogs shows Quentin as being a member of Precision Bearings who had a 7” released by San Francisco’s Fowl Records in 1981. He is credited with guitar/vocals on the infamous Black Humor LP ; also released by Fowl. This info had me do a quick search on the other members and I discovered that Good Samaritans band members Patty Costa, Mark Berndt and Dan Houser were all involved with both Precision Bearings and Black Humor. Dan Houser; their guitarist, produced the Urban Assault EP and two of the Good Samaritans folks are credited as producing the The Fuck Ups-FU82 EP. I looked a little closer and noticed Tom Mallon engineered or produced all of the Fowl releases. So, it seems that the Good Samaritans were the step before Fowl Records, and the members seem to link all of those bands and releases together.
Needless to say, this chance record for half a buck not only turned out to fill in an interesting history blank, but the single is really good, too. Their sound most certainly fits into the SF art-punk/wave bands of the day. It avoids the “commercial ambition” pit falls many bands and over zealous managers fell into time and time again in those days. Two songs and one’s an instrumental. The A side is a swirling blast with some great falsetto vocals and well handled sax. The B side is a fine instrumental that chugs along at a good pace, but I still think vocals would have worked well on it.
If you know of any compilation appearances or other related info, please don’t forget to comment! Now if only someone would do something about that Precision Bearings 7"...
Good Samaritans-7"
1980-self released
Side A: Dotted Line
Side B: Nightmares Theme
Ripped at 320kps with scans of the sleeve
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