The Crowd

Band Members

• Dennis Walsh
• More....

Write up from OC's 129 Greatests Bands Ever

It took 20 years for someone to hear the Crowd on the radio, says drummer Dennis Walsh—and then it turned out that it was actually the Offspring. Story of their life: if Posh Boy's Beach Blvd. comp had come out in 1999 instead of 1979, the Crowd would have been the Offspring, with whipcrack pop-punk songs like "Modern Machine" (still catchier than anything the kids loitering around the Block listen to) and "Right Time." Too bad that the only credit they get for basically blueprinting California pop-punk is from us, the 'zine Razorcake and the counter guys at record stores. Still, there's a happy (but not flashy) ending: the Crowd's sound lives on in bands like the Offspring and Green Day, but the Crowd themselves live on, too, slogging toward their silver anniversary on the small-club circuit just for the fun of it. Never mind that they've got more kids than chords between them these days; as one of their favorites sayings runs, "Nice guys finish last—but it's a marathon, not a sprint!"