Fri Oct 18, the Rendezvous, $10.
Everyone's parents FIght--whether it's over bills, shopping, or whose fault it was that you were born. Estrus Records owner Dave Crider's folks fought over the important stuff, leaving a lasting impression on the eldest of their three children. "My folks were fairly young when I sprouted and I remember an argument they had when I was a kid about who was a better band, the Stones (my mom's fave) or Zeppelin (my dad's choice)," says the Yakima-via-D.C. native. "I just figured that was the sort of shit that everybody's folks discussed."
Crider's dad raised him on music, teaching his kid how to use records in neighborhood turf wars. "I remember my dad used to LOVE to play the Crazy World of Arthur Brown LP really loud to piss off the neighbors (we lived in a duplex at the time)," he says.
The grandson of a honky-tonk bluegrass guitarist, it was only natural that Crider's world would revolve around music, as the label icon went through bands like most high-school boys go through young girls' hearts. From 1985 to 1988 there was the Roof Dogs, followed by a 10-year span with Bellingham's Mono Men. But Crider's skill isn't limited to making music--he's just as good at helping others get heard as well.
In 1989, Crider started Estrus Records as a way of releasing Mono Men cassettes. Today, the Estrus catalog includes a broad collection of rock that fits under what Crider calls an all-encompassing attitude: "It's a pretty raw, rough-edged, in-your-face thing that everybody shares," he says. And like his father before him, his bands have "no fear of volume."
Crider's been helping garage bands since the early days, releasing records by everyone from the Mooney Suzuki and the Makers, to Federation X and the Soledad Brothers. And if it weren't for the mulleted guitar whiz, we wouldn't have Garage Shock, the international, decade-old, every-other-year event corralling together a whole mess of rowdy rock.
So that's the hacked-down history of a man you should know if you love down 'n' dirty rock 'n' roll. But for the future you should also know about one of Crider's newest acts--his "hard soul" group, the DT's. Formed last year, the DT's place Crider on guitar, Phil Carter on drums, and Diana Young-Blanchard on vocals.
Young-Blanchard has a voice strong enough to lift semis at a truck stop--a hardened, husky delivery that gives the DT's an advantage over a lot of the rock 'n' soul acts. "I started singing 'professionally' at about 17 or 18 with this biker band in Yakima," she says. "We did a lot of rock covers and I started hanging out in biker bars singing Janis Joplin and Grace Slick and shit like that for tips."
After falling for singers like Etta James in grade school, Young-Blanchard became fascinated by women like Tina Turner and Aretha Franklin. "I hate to say this, but there are very few non-black, female singers that have inspired me," she admits. "Of course, I love Janis, but I left her behind for a lot of years. It's really only been since the DT's that I've re-embraced her."
Using Young-Blanchard's whiskeyed delivery as a focal point, the DT's mix a little Aerosmith with a little James Brown, thickening years of rock 'n' roll history with the gospel fever of soul. Now Crider is bringing the DT's through Seattle for a couple shows--a city rumor has him at odds with. "I have no more of a beef with Seattle than I do with L.A.," says the Bellingham resident. "But my thing is that if people hand me shit, I'm gonna make them sniff it. What I don't like about Seattle is playing the games that seem to crop up in order to be a part of the system there, but that's a personal choice. In general, though, I don't have a problem with Seattle."
There's no shit to sniff with the DT's--or with Estrus for that matter, as Crider continues releasing topnotch records (new Immortal Lee County Killers in January) and taking his hard soul revue on the road. Between his bands and his label, Crider's parents' passion has become his permanent vocation, and he laughs about his current situation as a full-time music fanatic. "It was a glorified hobby," he says, "that's really gotten quite glorified, I guess."
