Transcript

Location: 206 Copeland Ave

Rick Pyrvisky: We’re looking at the Avalon Ballroom. That summer of ‘63 when the Marauders were starting, our first thing with Lindy Shannon was when he took us to see this young California band called the Beach Boys who played at the Avalon Ballroom. It never really was a venue for rock and roll, it was made for trombones, and saxophones, and trumpets, and things like that. It wasn’t made for, like, a guitar at high reverb and vibrato. We were still putting our band together but Lindy thought we should see really an up-and-coming band like that, to get some ideas, and it was real kind of beneficial and magical [laughs]. They were still forming, and we kind of identified with them a little bit, with how they played their guitar styles and that stuff, because we were all playing that way back then. It was kind of a Chuck Berry bass, that’s what the Beach Boys were based on. They were just good old fashioned rock and roll. When we heard them play there, they had all these high electronic things with their guitars, and it just seemed like the music was bouncing off the walls. I’m Rick Pyrvisky, and it was just a wonderful place, it was kind of the heart of the north side.