FOUR EYES Penny Pong bw Disengaged

thanks to Collin for this

Killer-Fish, 1980

PENNY PONG

DISENGAGED

A San Diego based power pop band, led by vocalist, bassist and songwriter Mark Decerbo. Active since 1976, the group, originally a sextet named Copenhagen, pursued a self-described ‘country, boogie, rock and pop’ sound before privately issuing their own single featuring two original band compositions in 1979 (‘Tonight’ b/w ‘Don’t Sail Too Close To The Wind’), which, I am - understandably - quite desperate to hear. In the year previous, the group also acted as the backing band for blues guitarist Tomcat Courtney, as well as noted cult weirdo, Gary Wilson, on a short West Coast promotional tour for the Endicott, NY native’s claustro-funk-epic, ’You Think You Really Know Me.’ A name-switch to the more new-wave-friendly Four Eyes followed in 1980, as well as a paring down of membership, first to a quartet and then a trio. The group made an appearance on NBC’s The Gong Show, performing Little Richard’s ‘Tutti Frutti’ and, after further line-up shifts, relocated to post-Knack Hollywood. The same year, Four Eyes recorded their only single, issued on manager Mark Shapiro’s Killer-Fish imprint, featuring a clever new wave A-side, similar in style to the db’s, and a gorgeous, guitar-driven power pop B-side, rightly comped on the Shake Some Action CD series. The group attracted some major label attention in the wake of their single, but, despite recording an album’s worth of demos (some with Earle Mankey), Four Eyes never issued any further records in the group’s original lifetime and broke up in 1988 (two later songs, ‘Dangerous’ and ‘Life After High School’ do turn up on two local radio station compilations and indicate a more synth-heavy direction). These unreleased recordings finally saw the light of day in the 2009 anthology issued by Blind Spot Records as ‘Four Eyes Anthology: 1977 - 1988 Part One.’