On Tuesday, January 13, 1981, La Mirada sponsored a concert featuring three bands — Oingo Boingo, City Lights, and Finesse.

The three-member Finesse came on first and played their usual hard rock. City Lights was second in line and were the hardest-sounding band with some heavy-metal music.

By 8:50, Oingo Boingo took the stage and began with a new song which the audience seemed to like. However, though Oingo Boingo would be better to see at a club for sound purposes, the lighting for the band was excellent.

Danny Elfman, the wildest of the eight, was energetic and sang very well. The only problem in the concert was when the sound went out in the middle of the song, "I Love Little Girls." The best part of the concert was the last four songs, "I Love Little Girls," "Violent Love," "Aint [sic] This the Life," and "Only a Lad."

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Just before Oingo Boingo went on I had a chance to interview Oingo Boingo's lead singer, song writer, and rhythm guitarist, Danny Elfman. Everyone who has seen a picture of him says he looks "weird," or that he is "not normal" or that he must be "some kind of freak." Everyone has his own opinion, but if you were to talk to him you would say that he is a normal person; in fact, he is very intelligent, and he looks different on stage.

On stage he seems "wild," wears unusual clothes, and wears makeup to make himself look like some kind of demon. All of this is for promotional purposes only. Off stage he is calm, dresses normally (T-shirts and jeans), and wears no makeup, and his personality is interesting. Elfman knows what he is talking about, and he likes to joke around. He seems to be simply a musician who likes to make music.

I asked Elfman why Oingo Boingo decided to play at a high school. He answered, "Since the song 'Only a Lad' started playing, suddenly we were picked up heavily by the high school audience which we were never able to get through to before. Our audience was always an older one, and the younger audience was getting real good in the clubs all of a sudden. It was a good energetic audience, and the reason was the tremendous influx of high school age kids."

"We decided that was really a prime audience, so we decided to do some dances, because I know a lot of kids can't get into some of the clubs. We tried one, and we enjoyed it so we decided to do a whole bunch of them. I like getting in where the kids are. It's more interesting."

About future plans he said, "Right now, we hope to start the actual recording of our first album in February. The promotional record is selling very well and is still going strong." Elfman also says the future looks very good at this point. When I asked him about the current music scene he said, "Because L.A. is the center of the music business, there are a lot of real lousy bands that are basically just hustling for the deals. But there is a smaller percentage of real good bands, there just aren't enough of them actually into playing good music that are going after that magic record deal in the sky."

Some of Danny Elfman's favorite bands are XTC, Madness, Selectors, the Specials, Devo, Bowie's new work, Talking Heads, X, the Go Go's, Suburban Lawns and Wall of Voodoo.

The final question of the night was, "How did you get the name Oingo Boingo?"

Said Elfman, "It just popped into someone's head."

The New Wave group, Oingo Boingo, performed in the La Mirada High School gym
on Tuesday, January 13, to a very excited audience. (Photo by S.K.)