This Friday, Friday the 13th, the first record from Naked Beast will be released on Oakland’s very own Guitars & Bongos! Have a listen and buy the record HERE.

Given the importance of Crime to rock n’ roll history (let alone the history of rock in SF), this is pretty huge.

The band includes Johnny Strike (voices, guitars), Hank Rank (drums, percussion), Roger Strobel (bass), Michael Campbell (processed sounds, bowed strings, soundscapes) & Joey D’Kaye (guitar, synthesizers, theremin).

According to people that know:

NAKED BEAST started as a literary vehicle with CRIME members Hank Rank and others backing up a series of readings Johnny Strike gave in San Francisco with cut-up tapes, distorted guitars, and old-timey sound effects under the name Remote Viewer, and later as Dr. D.

Strike met Michael Campbell, a local artist who also worked in soundscapes and found sound. Another CRIME part-time member Joey D’Kaye came aboard to pick up a 2nd guitar, synthesizers and theremin. With Roger Strobel on bass the gang morphed into NAKED BEAST. The group developed new material, but kept some of the spoken word, as well as the experimental spirit. After various mishaps, setbacks, illnesses, name changes etc the band finally, after two years, got down to business in the summer of 2014 and recorded their album.

Produced by Rank’s son George S. Rosenthal at the Complex in San Francisco.