BY MIKE GITTER Another time, another place, a different twist in the alternate history of punk, So-Cal’s loud, fast, hook-heavy, and probably most literate band, Channel 3, would have been The Replacements. By the time the Cerritos-born band released 1983’s After The Lights Go Out, a record that hot-wired the grit of their steady stream of releases since 1980’s self-titled CH3 EP and (barely) three-minute barbs like “I’ve Got a Gun” or “Catholic Boy”, Channel 3 weren’t content to merely live in punk’s wash of white noise and static. “We were part of that class of 1980, 1981, bands like TSOL, The Adolescents, Agent Orange and so many others that came after the first wave of bands like The Germs, The Co-Go’s, the Masque era bands,” recounts guitarist Kim Gardener, who formed CH3 with childhood pal, singer/guitarist Mike McGrann in 1979. “By 1983, 1984, it was clear that we were all learning to write songs and play our instruments better. We all wanted more than just
to play two-minute hardcore songs.” By the time Channel 3 were interviewed by xXx at Boston’s The Channel club on January 15, 1984 (on tour with New York’s Kraut, who rolled up with Sex Pistol, Steve Jones, in-tow), they were one of many bands, including the likes of Husker Du and the pre-Soul Asylum, Dave Pirner-fronted Loud Fast Rules that were about to shower the bald-brigade with a more melodic, just-as-heartfelt, riot of their own. That’s to say nothing of McGrann being one of punk’s best lyrical storytellers in his own right - one of CH3’s sharpest calling cards that continues to the band’s most recent album, 2018’s Jay Lansford-produced Put ‘Em Up. “Mike and I go back to second grade together and have been buddies since then,” Gardener says. “We went to school together, we learned to play guitar together. Mike was also a creative writing major, so when he came with the lyrics to ‘Manzanar’ and the whole concept of what
that meant to him [Manzanar being a Japanese internment camp during WWII where over 100,000 Japanese Americans were unjustly incarcerated] being half-Japanese, it was like, ‘Wow!’ Also, having Jay Lansford [from the Simpletones and later, The Stepmothers] join the band was important. Jay helped produce a lot of the classic Posh Boy records like Agent Orange. He had a lot of ideas that we were excited about that didn’t fit into normal punk rock. Channel 3 always had rock and pop overtones, growing up in the era that we did – The Sweet, Bowie, T-Rex. Nothing to be feeling guilty about there!” From venerated punk rock roots, CH3 weren’t exactly afraid to let FM dreams creep into their sound that coalesced into a slightly rockier direction with 1985’s Enigma Records-issued Last Time I Drank… LP. While the band on the cover looked spikey-haired and ready to rock, the music remained heartfelt and anthemic – a classic case of an album cover not doing a band any favors! “It was really threw a lot of people off!” Kim laughs. “I have a letter framed in my office from Bob The Skin who threatened to break my nose if we came to Washington DC to play just because of that album cover! “I’ve gotta be honest, Mike and I are huge Replacements fans,” the guitarist continues. “They wrote great songs that had the energy of punk, but were about real things. When The Replacements album Tim came out, it made us step back and go, ‘Whoa, this is about real songwriting and real song craft.’ Records like Tim or Pleased to Meet Me and those records hold up better than most of the shit I hear on the radio now! At the time, a company called Avalon Attractions here in California managed us and they were talking about a Replacements/ CH3 tour! The biggest problem we would have had with that would have been keeping up with their drinking!” Channel 3 did have plenty of moments stepping out of hardcore punk’s shadow,
gigging in the mid-80’s with the likes of Midnight Oil, X and the Chili Peppers. “At the time, 1983, 1984, there was a whole kinda alt-punk going on: Green on Red here in L.A., Rain Parade, with the Paisley Underground thing going on,” Kim recalls. “We were friends with a lot of these bands and played shows that weren’t just hardcore people. We played shows with bands like The Three O’ Clock. The beauty was, when it started getting more regimented about hardcore, we had moved into other directions as well. For better or worse, we probably are most popular for the stuff we did on the Posh Boy label, but there’s nothing to feel guilty about where we went. “If you look back, MTV was actually playing a lot of these bands, at the time,” Gardener recounts. “The Leaving Trains, here in California to R.E.M. and U2, all of that stuff, kinda came from a punk-y feel. And then you had all of the goth-y stuff like The Cure or New Order, starting to break into the mainstream. Who would have thought, at the time, that R.E.M. would be playing stadiums?” Now, almost four decades and a few grey hairs later, McGrann and Gardener – who both
have businesses and children - have not only released the their first record in a decade (and best in a couple) with Put ‘Em Up and recently hit the East Coast for a handful of shows, but recently also got a surprise when hearing the CH3 classic, “Strength In Numbers” on the Netflix show, Stranger Things 2. “We were probably as surprised as anybody when we heard the song was going to be used,” the guitarist laughs. “Certainly our kids were!” What keeps Channel 3 onstage and occasionally in the studio? “The reason we’re still out there doing it, is that our band is based on a friendship that Mike and I have had for so long,” Kim happily admits. “Really what happened was that in after doing a number of benefits for Linda’s Doll Hut here in Orange County and benefits for the Orange Wood Children’s Home, back in the 90’s, we would do it to have fun. But, in 1999, the Internet was a brand new thing and I had been the collector in the band with just boxes and boxes of Channel 3 stuff. Pictures, photo albums, flyers, which I put online and people responded. Mike and I were floored – ‘Who the fuck wants to come see us play again?’ So in 1999 we started playing again. It’s 2018 and we haven’t stopped.”
ORIGINALLY IN ISSUE 3 / 1983