The Crowd

In the early 1980s, Huntington Beach, California, USA, briefly hosted The Crowd as part of its ‘beach punk’ movement. Jim ‘Trash’ Decker supplied vocals, Jay Decker played bass, Jim Kaa handled guitar and vocals, Tracy Porterfield added vocals, and Barry ‘Cuda’ Miranda sat behind the drums. Their aesthetic remained almost entirely removed from the dominant hardcore punk attitudes of the period. Outfitted in dayglo beachwear, they cultivated a singular communal dance style, with Decker often cited as the creator of the ‘slam dance’. The group’s output centered on trashy surf punk that recalled a less skilled Agent Orange. Their debut album, A World Apart, did not extend the momentum of their initial shows, enabling numerous acts they had helped inspire to eclipse them quickly. After Miranda exited, Dennis Walsh (aka Dennis Racket) arrived from the Flyboys. The Crowd disbanded soon afterward, ending Decker and Porterfield’s unrealized aim to become ‘the Frankie and Annette of the 80s’. Several former members subsequently joined Sextet. The Deckers, Kaa, and Walsh nevertheless regrouped in 1987 to cut a second Crowd album, Big Fish Stories. They have since maintained a balance between Crowd commitments and separate projects, even after Jay Decker announced his definitive departure in 1997.