The bands that built the historic Los Angeles punk scene interweave like a chain-link fence, bending around each other to form a wall of community and fast tempos. The more you look into it, the more you realize how most of these bands wouldn’t have survived without the others. When one band ends, another begins, and out of those ashes came some of the more memorable West Coast punk bands, including D.I.
Casey Royer formed D.I. after the first break-up of The Adolescents. The original four-piece consisted of Royer on vocals, Derek O’Brien on drums, Tim Maag on guitars, and Fredric Taccone on bass, but this version of the band only lasted until 1983, which brings us to this week’s Golden Age Thursday. Today, we have raw footage of D.I. rehearsing at Sherpa Studio in Fullerton, California. At the time, the lineup consisted of Royer, Taccone, guitarist Steve Roberts, and drummer Rikk Agnew. The footage comes from the Suburbia Sessions film, which was shot by Flipside Magazine and released to the public in 2008. The footage offers a rare glimpse into a youthful D.I. and features an electrifying performance of “Richard Hung Himself,” along with interviews with the band.
