Todd Congelliere’s a guy who makes a couple-few rad punky albums a year while running a scene-building record label and distribution co. Just before the world of live entertainment shut down for Covid, Todd got a place in San Pedro and turned it into one of the best spots in all of SoCal to see shows that don’t have steal-your-money corporate service fees. You could also play foosball and buy records there. He used to pour syrup on stages, and now he’ll pour you a beer at his very own venue, The Sardine.
For Popwell’s international audience, the city of San Pedro hangs down past every LA County stereotype and rolls a few hills deep into part of one of the largest ports in the world. Few pass through San Pedro. You have to want to be down there. Thanks to Congelliere’s Sardine, there’s a great reason for punk enthusiasts to clench the wheel and endure traffic.
Pedro punk is its own vibe. Todd’s music runs from twisted folksy grooves, to layered punk songs that compel you to shout along. All of it feels like well worn shoes gripping a skateboard with loose trucks. Comfortably wobbly.
Congelliere is running The Sardine. Running Recess Records. Running in the bands Clown Sounds, Toys That Kill, Jumpstarted Plowhards, and even sometimes still FYP. And Toys That Kill have recently been joining Mike Watt for sets full of Stooges songs. We’ve seen that performance three times now and it’s got the proper heart full of napalm. If they tour, flake on your family to see that show. It’s so fucking cool.
Todd’s so busy he was nearly impossible to pin down for an interview, and when we finally did have a time that worked, my clumsy middle-aged ass broke my hip being stupid in the pit at a Flipper show where Mike Watt was singing with the old San Francisco noisemakers. So we did this by email. Here’s what’s up with clown collector, musician, and venue owner, Todd Congelliere:
JF: I want to start back at the beginning and talk about the connection between skateboarding and your foundational love of music. For me, my fanatical addiction to shows and sounds was born of music at the ramps and on car rides to spots with other skaters – was it like that for you? What were the first bands you loved as a fan and an artist yourself? Are there moments you remember where a certain band popped out, or you got motivated to start playing yourself?
TC: Skateboarding was the main key to me finding punk, which means just music in general for me. Before I had a ramp in my backyard, I remember going to another guy’s ramp and they were blasting 7 Seconds. The song “Wasted Life Ain’t No Crime.” It was on one of those Mystic We Got Power LP compilations. I thought they were singing “wet boys wet boys wet boys. Wet wet wet wet boys”. I assumed they were singing about sex cos I just thought they were bad boys. Turns out they weren’t. I think that was the seed. 7 Seconds was by far my favorite band. Then I would watch skate videos, which had mainly punk (Black Flag, Germs, etc). Once I had a ramp, people would bring over dubbed comp tapes with classic punk. I was totally hooked. We exclusively played punk at my, and other skate ramps. Then we’d go venture to Mike Tokimoto’s ramp, who was a BMXer, and he’d be playing metal. Fast forward 6-7 years, and I make some money from skateboarding to where I bought my own Tascam 4 track, make FYP tapes and sell ’em exclusively at my skate contests.
MC: A whole other side to 7 Seconds! So that must have been the genesis of Recess Records, when you were selling those tapes? How did it go from that to other bands? When did it start to feel like a label? 
TC: I was doing the layout for the first FYP 7” (Recess#1) at World Industries (skate company) and noticed they had this rub off sheet of school symbols and at the last minute rubbed off that teeter totter logo and just wrote “Recess Records” in pencil. I wanted it to just “appear” that it was on a record label. Eventually, I got around to doing a second FYP 7” with the same logo and label name but it didn’t feel like a real label ’til I put out the Garden Weasel 7”. My friend Jim Shank told me about them cos he used to be in the band when they were called WD40. Jim turned me onto a ton of punk when he came over to skate my ramp. He was also the best skater around and possibly put on the 7 Seconds “wet boys” tape on my initial exposure. So I felt like I had to listen to him. Full circle of the punk and skateboard recipe. After I worked with them it just snowballed into what it is today. Not much has changed on this end.
JF: It was a whole different world back then (mid-late ‘90s), getting a label and a band going.
TC: The first scheduled FYP show was supposed to be a Transitions skatepark in East LA. We show up and there’s a buncha people and some hippie band playing Doors songs. Then someone got stabbed. Ooof. So we couldn’t play. Our first show that we actually played was at the Anti-Club in LA. We did pretty good, so they wanted us to come back. So we did and I brought up some Hershey’s chocolate syrup to spray everywhere and I got physically pulled off stage by the old lady who ran the place. My bad.
Finding shows was much different, of course. Our first FYP tour wasn’t even booked as a tour at all. Calvin Johnson from K records asked us if we wanted to play a park show up in Olympia, WA with Hammerbox and Karp (Their first show). I agreed and borrowed my dad’s Volkswagen Vanagon to play that one show, not really thinking it’d be smart to play shows on the way up and back down. We get to Olympia the night before our afternoon show the next day and decided to check out a punk show happening. When we walked thru the door, the door person asked if we were FYP and she then asked if we’d do a set there. That’s the first tour show. Then we play the afternoon park show that we scheduled. Then our friend Brian asked if we’d play the laundromat that night. Just show up to some random laundromat and instant punk show. People in dryers and Calvin moshing while we’re playing. It was pretty epic! On the way home we stopped in Eugene, OR (I think it was Eugene?) and we found a punk show just to break up our drive. Scott from Neurosis was doing the show and asked if we wanted to jump on. We did. At that point we were just hunting for shows on the way back to So Cal. Almost like a fun challenge. We ended up playing 9 times on the first FYP tour that lasted 7 days, when I only booked one show originally.
JF: Nine gigs! Incredible. Must’ve been a blast. Somewhere in there you moved from Torrance to San Pedro, I think? What people/places/bands/circumstances made Pedro the place, rather than, I don’t know, Hollywood, or Whittier, or anywhere? My limited knowledge of the Harbor area scene is extra shabby until the Triskaidekaphobia comp around 2000. How was the Pedro scene when you moved to town?
TC: I moved to Pedro 26/27 years ago cos I opened up a record store here and ended up living in the back to save on rent. I stayed cos a little community was building and we had great comrades. My friend’s Hal and Andy and I rented houses on 4th Street and I eventually ran the label outta one. Hal worked for Recess so he’d just walk next door, work, then we’d have a block party every night. We started having shows there. It was a great time! Even though Pedro is less than 30 miles away from the places you mentioned, it feels like a million miles away. I don’t think I’ll ever wanna live in Hollywood or anywhere in LA proper. I know LA is a great city for many reasons but I don’t feel as comfortable there as in Pedro. There’s a community here that’s unrivaled to any Southern California city that I’ve ever been to. Obviously, I might be missing something but I’d be willing to bet all my money on Pedro.
The scene wasn’t as thriving as it’s been the last 10/20 years but Watt was here, Craig [Ibarra] was here, Vinnie was here – all trying to ignite righteous shit.
JF: And now you’re playing with Watt in Jumpstarted Plowhards. Where did that name come from? Isn’t there some kind of plan to record an album a year, or something like that?
TC: Jumpstarted Plowhards was Watt’s idea. The concept is that Watt gives me 40 bass tracks and I come up with the rest. Guitar, singing, lyrics, recording, etc., but also find a different drummer for each track, and then release 5 albums with 8 songs each. The original plan was to not play live ’til we have 5 albums. Now we will play live after I’m done with this second album. I’m very close! The drummers are the plowhards, and we jumpstart ’em.
JF: How did the Stooges sets come about? It’s so amazing live. When I think of Toys That Kill and The Stooges, they’re not the same sound/vibe – not in a bad way, just different. But this works. What kind of secret elixir makes it rock?
TC: About 10 years or so ago we had a tour planned that Chachi (TTK bass) couldn’t do and Watt offered to fill in. That didn’t end up happening but it was always on the table. Fast forward to this year we had a gig booked at the Sardine that Chachi had to back out of. I asked Watt and he said he can do it but didn’t have any time to practice. He had a tour planned that next week mixed with local gigs. So we just did Stooges songs. We dug it so much that we keep on doing it.
JF: Was that the SPIKE compilation show?
TC: Yes.
JF: That show was great. You pulled it off without any practice?
TC: Pretty much. We ran through ‘em at soundcheck.
JF: Well, I, for one, was impressed. The rest of the crowd seemed to be as well. It was fun. So let’s talk about The Sardine. It’s quickly become one of my favorite spots to see a show. What made you want to add venue owner to your long list of jobs? How the heck did you survive the pandemic shutdown?
TC: The Sardine started in some crazy roundabout way. My previous distributor shit the bed and I stopped trusting other distributors, so I decided to start my own. I asked Isaac Thotz (Arrivals, Treasure Fleet) to partner up on that. We started having shows in the lower floor where our HQ was and very quickly realized that we prolly couldn’t sustain that way. I remember pow wowing with Isaac one day. He was sitting in a chair facing the wall and I said “we should just open our own venue” and he swung around and said “OK!!”. That was pretty much it. Until we actually started. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to endure. 3 years of city hoops and hurdles. Once we finally opened our celebratory high fives were still reverberating when Covid started. 3 years to build and then not even 3 months to shut down. We lucked out though. Or we played our cards right and barely snuck through it all.
JF: I’m happy you survived. And you made another album. Tell me about the new Clown Sounds album, Born Under a Bad Sigh.
TC: The new Clown Sounds album is easily in my personal top 3 albums I’ve ever made. There was so much excitement and energy with everyone while making it. We all love the way it turned out. They all played great on it, too. I know people in bands live in the present tense when it comes to judging their releases. I try to be objective when it comes to that, but when all is said and done I have a strong feeling it will be one of my favorite things I’ve done.
Born Under a Bad Sigh borrows artwork from an old Albert King album. Check it out here.
The Sardine is located at 1101 S. Pacific Ave in San Pedro, CA.
Leave a Reply