The Tell-Tale Hearts: "(You're a) Dirty Liar" (Calhoun/Stax) 1983 demo. A bunch of tough guys with big noses and pizza faces.
The definition is by Gwynne Kahn, who at the time was the keyboardist for the Pandoras.
In reality, they were the best mid-80’s garage band in the San Diego area. Far from the outrageous teen-punk of Gravedigger V and the deranged violence of the Morlocks, the Tell-Tale Hearts were born out of Mike Stax's desire to sound like the Pretty Things from Get the Picture?.
And that’s exactly how these five bastards managed to play for three and a half years, a stunning cocktail made up of Pretty Things, Q65, Outsiders, and Shadows of Knight mixed with various R 'n B messes— a full immersion into a jungle of maracas, blues harmonicas that cut like blades, and cave-like reverbs that satisfied Mike's increasing need since those dull English afternoons, only slightly alleviated by experiences with the Crawdaddys and shared with Ray Brandes and the latter’s classmate (and boyfriend of his sister, NdLYS) Bill Calhoun. They weren't the only things Bill and Ray shared: they also had the same band, one of many retro-bands that were populating the country at that time, called Mystery Machine.
It was from that band that they let David Klowden go, to seat him on the stool of the new group.
Eric Bacher was a slacker who enjoyed playing in the unknown Freddie & The Soup Bowls and who had lately taken to hanging around 2378 Presidio Drive, a house just like a thousand others placed in a row in one of the city’s residential neighborhoods. He was the fifth man in what would become the "heart revealing" band, a name stolen from Poe’s book where Stax drowns his frustration over the split of the Crawdaddys. A group with enormous potential but also with too many constraints and rules to follow.
The new band chooses to have only one: to have none.
When they step on stage, the Tell-Tale Hearts are a pack. With Ray barking like a dog and shaking his maracas like a madman, Bill often abandoning the rusty structure of his VOX organ to dive into biting blues harmonica phrases, Eric caught up in his jungle-beat drowned in fuzz, the effete Mike with his collection of vintage basses and his caveman screams in heat, and David lost behind a tiny drum kit, pounding like a peasant’s feet in a mortar.
All equally indispensable.
Five wild kids with a gravedigger's shovel hidden in their underwear.
With that, they break through the soft crust of rock from Odyssey to dive into the tunnels that lead them to the heart of the tiny garage bands of the ‘60s. That's where it all begins, recording a demo at Studio 517 in San Diego with tracks stolen from the dusty 7” singles collected by Mike. The first original piece is credited to Stax/Calhoun and is titled Dirty Lia.
