Once upon a time, long ago and far away back in the 20th Century, there was a guy named Dave Gibson who lived in a house on Carondelet Street in Los Angeles with his dog Moxie and his pal Kronos.

Dave Gibson was a big guy. When I say "big", I do mean big as he was at least six feet tall and sometimes weighed over 300 pounds, but Dave Gibson was also big in the heart. That is to say, Dave Gibson was a friendly, gregarious sort of fellow, a man to be trusted most of the time.

In that big heart, Dave Gibson was an artist. His particular passions were comic books and music and art from the psychedelic 1960s, but he was shy about his graphic talents and he didn't play an instrument so he became a professional collector instead.

And in his role as a collector, Dave Gibson met almost everybody "making the scene" in Los Angeles from the 1960s-80s. L.A. stalwarts from Forrie Ackerman to Kim Fowley greeted him by name. Robert Williams and other familiar faces from the underground comics world were regular guests at Carondelet  Street holiday barbeques.

Dave Gibson founded the Moxie Record Company as an outlet for his collection of rare demos by obscure garage bands from the 1960s. The company was named for his dog Moxie, an aging dachshund with very persistent fleas, not the soft drink (although Dave did collect Moxie soft drink stuff.)

Moxie Records was also a "pressing service" for local bands in the 70s and 80s. Neighborhood children were warned away from the "danger house" on Carondelet Street because of the strange people and sounds that oozed through its walls.

The infamous LA punk label Dangerhouse Records was conceived on the second floor of Carondelet by David Brown, Black Randy and some of Dave Gibson's other passing upstairs tenants.

I was a new kid in town back in '77 when Shari Famous and I queued up to see Blondie and Devo play the "New Wave Fashion Show" at the Hollywood Palladium. As fate would have it, we were in line behind Dave Gibson and his pal Kronos.

Dave was wearing an enormous, faded 13th Floor Elevators tee and Kronos was ultra punk black and white with safety pins and a Germs badge stuck through his torn white Oxford shirt.

They looked a formidable pair, but when I exclaimed "Wow! 13th Floor Elevators!" to Shari Famous, Dave Gibson turned around and grinned and my life in Los Angeles was never the same again.

I started doing my own recordings on the East Coast in the early 70s and Dave Gibson founded the Moxie Record Company before we met, but we released a bunch of strange records together on the Moxie label in the late 70s and early 80s. For more than a decade, we were friends, partners, participants and witnesses to the birth of DIY, indy music and the death of vinyl. It was a fun time to be a fan!

Some of the best and less known acts to appear on the Moxie label included: Ned and Nelda / Baby Ray and the Ferns (Frank Zappa and Ray Collins - Ray approved the release), Moving Sidewalks (great pre-ZZ Top Billy Gibbons group), The Last*, The Surf Trio, The Unclaimed, Dredd Scott, The Miracle Workers, Flo & Eddie, The Pandoras, Eddie & The Showmen, Jay Condom, RR Riddle's Quite Frankly Band, Johnny Farfisa, Kronos and the Feltching Vampires and The Chocolate Watchband. (See Moxie Discography)

Moxie also released an EP of rare recordings by the huns, a group I sang lead for in 1965-6 in Ithaca NY, and several singles for my late 70s duo with Shari Famous, Rich & Famous. I also helped create at least two Moxie sub-labels: CMI Records, which released a single for R. Stevie Moore and my 1979 Dada2 EP; and the fLAtDiSk vinyl label, which begat my 1980 Mayan Canals 12-inch EP and the 1981 LP Kim Fowley Jr.: Son of Frankenstein, which in turn spawned a perennial Kim Fowley college radio hit Invasion of the Polaroid People. **

Dave Gibson died prematurely of a coronary  in Oregon at age 45, and there have been other Moxie labels and a multitude of Moxie bands since, but the legend of the original Moxie Record Company will live on forever in the hearts and souls of record collectors and independent musicians! :o)>

** Note: The late Greg Shaw released two volumes of  Moxie pressings under the titles You Gotta Have Moxie, Volumes 1 & 2, and they are probably still available in CD format from Bomp Records. Kim Fowley Jr.: Son of Frankenstein was later re-released as Kim Fowley's Bad News from the Underworld on the Marilyn Records label, also distributed by Bomp. If you own any of the vinyl mentioned above, hold on to it because it may be valuable!