Godmothers… James Intveld…Chickenshit Sundays

By Garrick Rawlings

Downtown San Pedro is rich with historic old buildings that tell many tales of the legendary waterfront city and Godmothers, on the northwest corner of W. 7thth Street and S. Centre Street, is one of them. According to owner Sandra Marchioli, “I heard back when Beacon Street was around, it was more of a brothel, it’s been a Mexican restaurant, it was a corner open-air grocery store at one time, it’s even on the cover of a Billy Joel album [1974’s Streetlife Serenade, a painting by Brian Hagiwara, art direction and design by Ron Coro].”

Marchioli, who’s lived in SP for 30 years, always wanted to own her own place. She tended bar there for five years before purchasing the business from former owners Jack and Kathy Bagliazo 10 and a half years ago. Curious about how Godmothers itself came about, Marchioli explains, “I always tried to get that story out of Jack and Kathy but never got a real answer, their family owned it for about 50 years — I really wish I knew! Jack’s mom was the one who ran that bar, her name was Ruth and they adopted her as Godmother Ruth, her name is on the big mirror we have in the bar.” 

Being shut down for 14 months over the lock-down, Marchioli took the opportunity to tweak both the bar and entertainment scheme, “I am friends with Deke Dickerson [highly regarded  West coast roots scene guitarist/bandleader] and he did me the favor of playing at Godmothers and one night Brent Harding [bassist for Social Distortion since 2005] was playing with Deke and he invited James [Intveld] down, who I didn’t know, to check everything out and we started talking. He told me he really wanted to start a chickenshit raffle somewhere, and I told him you came to the right place!” As fate had it, Marchioli is an avid urban gardener and was already well-versed in the care of chickens and the advantages of chicken manure for fertilizer.

“I was awestruck that James Intveld came to my bar because I knew who he was, I thought ‘Wow’ and I told him anything you want to do, I’ll do, I don’t have any money but we have to do something. James took over out of the kindness of his heart, he shored up the stage and sound system, we took down the false ceiling, uncovered the natural brick, the little windows on top used to be covered, we opened it all up.”  

Marchioli carefully curates the other acts that perform there, “we don’t have shows all the time but we make sure the shows are great when we do, we have Tom Kenny [aka the voice of SpongeBob SquarePants] and he has a 12-piece soul band that is so fantastic I can’t even tell you, he’ll be playing our Christmas show on De.c 16 and James will be there with his own swing band. We book a lot of Ameripolitan Award winners, Deke, Dave Stuckey & The Hot House Gang, Big Sandy & His Flyright Boys to name a few.”

LA native and California roots music legend Intveld, who is Johnny Depp’s singing voice in the classic 1990 John Waters film Cry Baby, is also an actor and director, he directed the 2005 western film Miracle at Sage Creek starring David Carradine and Wes Studi. He began performing as a teenager entering talent contests at the famed CA country music institution, the Palomino Club in North Hollywood. His early band, The Rockin’ Shadows, broke up when his band member brother Ricky Intveld and bass playing friend Woodward understandably left him to join Rick Nelson’s Stone Canyon Band who were tragically killed in the 1985 plane crash that also took Nelson, a crushing loss all around. Music has always been his creative center, remarkably, he can (and does) play nearly every instrument in a band when he wants to, and has worked with Rosie Flores, the Blasters, Kid Ramos, and many luminaries of the scene who are too many to list here. 

Intveld’s crack band of seasoned pros is called the Mercenary Cowboys with Bob Gothar on guitar, Lorne Rall on bass, and Kip Dabbs on drums. On Chickenshit Sundays at Godmothers, these guys start at 2 p.m. and go to 5 p.m., and when I say go, I mean go.  They take no breaks nor intermissions, it is a three-hour show of the best blends of rockabilly, honky-tonk country and with a lot of western swing mixed in — the dance floor is often full. They don’t even stop for the chickenshit raffles that proceed throughout the whole show, for those announcements, Intveld shifts into MC mode as the band captivatingly vamps along with instrumental numbers like the Peter Gunn Theme.

This show was also Intveld’s birthday celebration and many special guests showed up to sit in and augment the band throughout the afternoon. It was a great party, joining the band were Adrienne Cohen Isom, bassist with celebrated LA roots band Nocona, the aforementioned Dave Stuckey on guitar/vocals, in-demand fiddle virtuoso Aubrey Richmond on fiddle from the excellent Mustangs of the West band, Shooter Jennings and many more along with LA blues giant Kid Ramos on guitar.

I really needed to find out where all this chickenshit came from. I caught up with James on the phone as he was driving, on his way to conduct his popular weekly livestream which can be seen on his Facebook page. “I stopped in there for a minute to see my friend Brent Harding, who invited me down, who was playing with Deke that night and the owner came over to me and asked if I’d want to play there. And I wasn’t particularly interested in playing at the club but I did say to her a little later I was looking for a place to do a chickenshit raffle [a bingo-type game] because when I go to Austin, Texas I do chickenshit bingo on Sunday afternoons at Ginny’s Little Longhorn [Saloon] and another club called C-Boy’s [Heart & Soul Bar] owned by the Continental Club folks. Originally Dale Watson started doing it in a club here in North Hollywood when he was living here and got the idea to do it in Texas. So, whenever I was in town, I would either join him or sit in for him if he was out of town. So I’ve been doing it in Austin for many, many years and now that I’m living out here again taking care of my mom,  I was looking for a Sunday afternoon gig around here.” [James moved to Nashville, Tennessee in 2006 and still owns a home there, he often stays in Austin for the lucrative musical market and to be with his many local friends there.]

“A few months passed after I spoke with Sandy [Marchioli] and she came to one of my shows one day and hit me up and asked if I still wanted to do chickenshit at her club and said ‘I have 20 chickens!’ – I started laughing and said OK and gave her the specs on how to build the cage and booked a date. A lot of people showed up, it went well and was a lot of fun and that’s how it got goin’ at Godmothers. 

“I was looking for a place to hold court in, like we used to have at a couple of other clubs over the years, we didn’t have it anymore and Sandy was the right person to do that with, she was open and game. She trusted me that I had her best interests in mind and wanted to do something that was cool for everyone and it’s a really friendly place to go to. It’s set up really nice, you can sit up at the bar where you can hear the music and see the band but still talk to people, or you can be down in front on the dance floor dancing or watching, so you’ve got a lot of options. It’s nice to have a place like that, it’s really together and she’s such a sweet person to everybody, when you go in there there’s just a good feeling.”

Curious about what was up with James’ latest endeavors, I asked him to fill me in, “I did two little tours with the band X this year promoting my original music, it was great. I put a single out this year on Mule Kick Records in March, Let’s Talk it Out, which got some radio airplay and we made a video for it. I’m planning to put out another single here real soon and the way the market is, I think I’ll just release singles for a while to keep current until I really have some time to make an album. 

“We’ve got a few shows coming up here, Christmas party at Godmothers, another chickenshit, and New Year’s Eve at Golden Sails Hotel in Long Beach in the big ballroom they have there. I put a show together like my Christmas show, I have Big Sandy on and Dave Stuckey; also playing is Carl Sonny Leyland and my own swing band, the Swing Sinners. I kind of have the top rockabilly, country and western swing guys on this bill, I wanted to have a nice New Year’s show where everyone can be together — and I’m going to Spain in February for a big festival, then Vegas in April.”

For another perspective from a knowledgeable promoter, booker and dedicated roots music scene supporter, I contacted longtime Rancho Palos Verde resident, owner of the exclusive and always sold-out backyard home concert venue Jacaranda Veranda, John Antich, who’s hosted Intveld at his venue, for his take on Chickenshit Sundays. “James’ goal was he wanted a place to play where he could play regularly, and all of his friends who come through town from Texas, Nashville and all across the country, for them to potentially have a place to play. It’s really picked up since its inception, that thing has gotten to be a popular event and like a lot of people, I’ve got caught up into it. Vince Jordan, the bartender there, is the guy who used to run the famous Blue Café in Long Beach where all the rockabilly guys played for years. He has so much experience in that scene and Irene [Portillo], another scene veteran bartending there is so great, all the folks that work there are so good, I really like them all.”

Are you still wondering what the hell the chickenshit part of Chickenshit Sunday’s is? Picture a chicken coop with a bingo-like grid drawn on the floor of the coop and let the shit fall where it may and check your ticket.

Chicken Shit Sundays is usually a once-a-month show depending on Intveld’s touring schedule, $10 at the door, and free hot dogs.

Intveld Christmas show: Saturday, Dec. 16, Chickenshit Sunday, Dec. 17, and NYE at Golden Sails Hotel in Long Beach.