Local Punk Vet Releases New EP With Songwriting Side Project

By Dave Pehling

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- Longtime Bay Area punk rock fixture Doug "Sluggo" Cawley may be best known for his extended stint leading hilarious, cross-dressing trash punk band the Grannies under the stage name Lois "Common" Denominator, but he has worn many hats over his almost three decades on the local scene.  Cawley moved to San Francisco in 1990 after cutting his teeth in the Boston-area bands Oddly Enough and Hullabaloo during the mid-to-late 1980s.

Once here, the guitarist founded in '90s outfit Ain't with future wife/singer Laurian Rhodes which released four albums and became a standby of the SF punk scene for much of the decade until splitting up in 1998. While the Grannies have been his main creative outlet, Sluggo also had a hand in the imprints Dead Teenager Records (co-founded with Zeke drummer Donnie Paycheck) and Wondertaker Records.

While the Grannies have been largely quiet since the release of the live split album Lords and Ladies released in 2016 with regular touring partners the Upper Crust outside of a few local appearances, last year Sluggo announced plans for his new recording project REQ'D (pronounced "wrecked"). Taking a more roots-minded singer/songwriter approach. Sluggo enlisted a variety of collaborators in the studio including his wife Laurian, guitarist Anthony Pulsipher (ex-Spidermeow), bassist David Flores and the son of Iggy Pop/Tin Machine drummer Tony Sales among others.

Putting his heart on his sleeve for a batch of surprisingly fragile and introspective tunes collected on Fall in Love on Hate Street, the songwriter explores a mix of unplugged country and original bar-band balladry that echoes Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (with a touch of Johnny Thunders) along with covers of tunes made famous by Nick Cave, Townes Van Zandt and Bonnie Tyler. Though the album only came out in February, this weekend the band celebrates the release of a new three-song EP that the band has issued on CD along with the tunes from the first album.

The band plays songs from the album and EP at the Starry Plough in Berkeley this Saturday night. They will be joined by Slow Phase, a new Oakland hard-rock power trio featuring talented six-string wizard Dmitri Mavra (best known as the creative force behind mighty East Bay stoner rock quartet Skunk), REQ'D guitarist Pulsipher on bass and vocals and drummer/singer Richard Stuverud, who has played in Seattle punk band the Fastbacks as well as Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament's side projects Three Fish, Tres Mts. and RNDM. The trio is making their live debut Saturday. Rootsy post-punk Americana outfit Collisionville also performs.

REQ'D
Saturday, Aug. 24, 8 p.m. $10
The Starry Plough