Under the Radar

It's great to know that a musician as artistic and engaging as singer/songwriter Randy Weeks is a local.

I first discovered Weeks at the downtown Hermosa Beach club Café Boogaloo where he often plays and with the thrilling guitarist Tony Gilkyson. It was around the time Weeks was preparing to go back into the studio with a follow-up work to the marvelous “Sold Out at the Cinema” released in 2003.

Well, the time has finally come as Weeks at the tail end of summer released his new work, “Sugar Finger.” Weeks completed three albums as a solo musician - the first was “Madeline” in 2000 - and soon after began his biweekly residency at the Cinema Bar with Gilkyson and Mike Stinson who have also played on his albums.

“I have been playing with Tony the longest and I met him in a bar six or seven years ago,” said Weeks. “I sort of asked him if he wanted to play with me and to my surprise he agreed because he is such a top-notch guy. I have no idea what possessed me to ask him.”

Weeks is not only admired by listeners but musicians - Lucinda Williams covered Weeks' song “Can't Let Go,” on her “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road” album - and filmmakers - Peter Farrelly heard Weeks at the Cinema Bar in Culver City, which led to many appearances on soundtracks like “Shallow Hal,” “Sunshine State,” “The Ringer,” “Jack Frost” and “Stuck On You.” Even club owners like Stephen Roberts of Café Boogaloo and Rod Castillo of the Cinema Bar dig Weeks.

“I was playing with Ramsey Midwood. We had recorded together and had a band together and he knew about the place and so we went down there,” remembered Weeks about first playing at the Cinema Bar. “It wasn't real busy at the time so it was easy to get in and play there. So we just started doing it on a regular basis and it sort of took off. It was kind of a small bar and that made it easy to fill the place.”

Since his teens, Weeks has worked as a professional musician, playing the drums at 16 in a country band that toured the Midwest. Subsequent to a six-month stint in the manufacturing industry for the Toro Company based in Windom, Minn., Weeks came to the realization that a musician's life was for him, and used the money he saved during his short-lived corporate career to move to the Twin Cities (from the small town of Windom) where he played in hard rock bands and transitioned over to playing the guitar.

Weeks, who lives in Santa Monica, relocated to Southern California from Minnesota in 1979. Within a few years of his arrival, he became one-half of the duo Lonesome Strangers with Jeff Rymes. The group sprouted up from the fertile ground of American roots music famous in Los Angeles during the 1980s where artists like Williams, Dwight Yoakam, Jim Lauderdale, Rosie Flores and Buddy Miller emerged as trademark players of the scene.

“The first thing that I saw that impacted me was The Blasters, a revelation of roots music for me, they were doing old rock 'n' roll but they were steeped in the blues, old R&B, so that what was going on back then and I guess you could say it's still going on,” said Weeks. “Things are little more country, I guess. When I first moved here it was The Blasters and punk music, which was like going back in time because punk music was kind of rootsy in that it was simple and raucous. Then there was kind of a bit of country scene that came after that, which I was a part of. You'd think I had moved to Texas or something.”

The Lonesome Strangers seemed to be musical brethren as the harmonies they sang, recalled Weeks, came very natural, and out of the collaboration came classic country and roots styles and sounds with a unique and unexpected interpretation in the punk genre. The duo's debut on record came in the form of a track on the 1985 compilation “A Town South of Bakersfield.” Lonesome Strangers then followed up with its album “Lonesome Pine.” A song on its second album, a cover of Johnny Horton's “Goodbye Lonesome, Hello Baby Doll,” scored Lonesome Strangers a Top 40 country hit in 1989. The band took a break in the early 1990s when Rymes moved to Georgia but later recorded “Land of Opportunity” in 1997.

Although Weeks had been refining his songwriting skills since moving to the West Coast, he really began to focus on the craft and moved beyond the styles associated with Lonesome Strangers. Weeks has become a full-blown musician in the genres of roots, soul, rock, pop and the blues, all the while penning some of the best lyrics around.

“I feel like I welcome things that are outside what I may have done previously so if I bounce off in some different direction, I am pretty comfortable with it,” said Weeks.
Being that Weeks lives in town, it's nice to know that you can check him out most any time of the year. For more information on Weeks' upcoming shows, visit his Web site at www.randyweeks.com.