ArtistInfo

Street Punks

Band,
Musician of Alternative
A.k.a. Don Lamb - Tony Lourenco -Rick Clare - Kenny Cimino

Street Punks started in the early 70's as a rock band called, Cornerstone. Bass player, Don Lamb, started the band. In 1975, neighborhood musician, and friend, Rick Clare joined the band as guitar player. Rick was still a senior in high school, at the time. Joined with guitar player Brian Humes, and drummer Rick Gonzales, they started to change their sound, to a more New Wave Rock sound. They changed their name to, Cornerstone Street Punks. Playing all the big bay area clubs, such as: All 3 Keystones, Berkely, Palo Alto and San Francisco, The Longbranch, Center Theater and so on. Playing with the popular groups of the time like, Eddie Money, Y&t, , Journey, they started to draw their own crowds..Street Punks stage would be set with an alley background. Old buildings with lights in a few of the windows. Their guitars would be set in garbage cans. They started to write all originals and dropped Cornerstone from the name. Now the "Street Puinks". In July of 75 Ken Cimino replaced drummer Rick Gonzales. They went on to win a local battle of the bands in Jan of 76. Replacing guitar player Brian, in Feb. was Tony Lourenco. Friend of new drummer Ken Cimino. Winning a couple more battle of the bands they wrote more in the New Wave Punk, that was in very early stages..Playing at a few early punk clubs in San Francisco, they would draw even bigger crowds. In March of 1976 they played for the first time, at The Mabuhay Gardens (The Fab Mab). Owner Dirk Dirksen and the audience was so responsive, that Dirk knocked off one of the bands scheduled 3 weeks later, to play on the same bill, with The Damned, from England. Now traveling around to the top punk, clubs like The Whiskey A Go Go, they had sold out shows they headlined at. In June of 1976, the punks caught the eye of Mary Monday. She was looking for a band to record with. Mary and Street Punks merged and became Mary Monday And The Bitches. Recording 4 tunes on a 7in. ep called "Out Of The Alley" Mary had "Popgun" and a revised version of Street Punks song, "Leave Us Alone" on side A. On side B was Street Punks doing, Suburban Boredom" and "Leave Us Alone". 5 promo copies were cut and distributed to local radio stations. San Jose station KSJO, had a punk show, deejayed by members of punk group Nuclear Valdez", who also worked at the station. Street Punks song Leave Us Alone, was played at the beginning of the shows for 6 weeks, and 3 weeks ended the show. No more records were pressed as the company went out of business. Other bands were waiting for their records and never got them/ So they wrote 6 more tunes, Blue Jeans And Jelly Beans, Mass Confusion, Punk Jacket,, as well as others. So Mary Monday and the Bitches went on to record Gave My Punk Jacket To Rickie and Popgun on another label. Going their own ways after August, the punks picked up long time friend Mike Tringali (The Dix) as lead vocals. CBS came to The Fab Mab to film Street Punks, for a news broadcast, showing punk bands in the U.S. New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Each city filmed one band. The first recording of Mary and Stret punks, on one of the promos, resurfaced and pressed by Mid_Nite Hi Productions.

Members

Don Lamb voc