Stretford and Soles

Saturday night was fun upon fun. I started out at Waterloo Park for the Alamo Drafthouse’s free, inflatable screening of Rock ‘N’ Roll High School. The Mullens (right) came down from Dallas to play some soul-tinged garage punk to get things started.

Toward the end of the Mullens’ set, my Alamo pal Julie took me over to meet P.J. Soles, pictured here (left) introducing the movie with Kier-La Janisse and Tim League. This, my friends, was a teen-age fantasy come true 25 years after the fact, as my sheepish fanboy demeanor undoubtedly demonstrated.

Soles was really nice, indulging everyone in stories about the movie and signing my vinyl copy of the soundtrack album. You know that’s going up on the wall. I learned Soles was 28 in 1979 when she played Riff Randell (her last teen-age role) and that she and former husband Dennis Quaid had the Ramones over for Thanksgiving dinner during the breakneck, three-week shoot. She said they were very polite.

Although I’ve seen R&RHS dozens of times, seeing it in the park on a mild October evening with a crowd of fans was a whole new experience. The Ramones’ concert sequence was played extra loud and everyone cheered when Riff blew up Vince Lombardi High. My only regret is that I didn’t get a photo with Soles.

After wolfing down a couple of fajita tacos, I cruised over to the Longbranch Inn to see Stretford. What a fun show that was. I had an instant familiarity with almost every song they played, even the ones I hadn’t thought about in years. Everyone was pogoing in front of the stage and singing along like it was 1993 all over again.

One thing I’ve finally learned is that you should always bring a camera to reunion shows because you never know who you’ll run into. To wit, here’s me and trumpeter/man about town Bill Jeffries.

Trumpeter Jennings Crawford (who you may recognize from the Wannabes) was the most dapper of the altogether dapper Stretford crew. Here he is (center) looking suave with Melissa Bryan and Bonnie Spanogle.

Photographic evidence of the traditional Stretford audience sing-along can be found here, with good ‘ol Tim Stegall from the Hormones leading the charge. He's the guy with the spikey black hair and white jacket. Tim just moved back to Austin after several years in New York and Las Vegas.