Doby Daenger

Doby Daenger is an American musician, writer, TV personality and performance artist based in Hollywood, California. She was born on Sunset Boulevard and grew up on Santa Catalina Island in Southern California. Her first performance was playing an acoustic guitar she got for her birthday with Benny Goodman and his wife on piano at the age of eight on their boat there. As a youth she fronted the punk rock group Strait Jacket in the early '80s, performing at many local clubs, including a regular spot on Sunday nights at Doug Weston's Troubadour. Mr. Weston would often join her onstage in a drunken stupor with his dogs and without his pants. This lineup produced a 45, "Get Out" on Bat Cat Records. Graduating to the harder stuff, she joined the staff of the notorious Cathay De Grande dubbed, "The most dangerous club in America," as DJ/waitress serving up tunes and liquor and befriending the likes of Texacala Jones of Tex & the Horseheads, who got her the job, joined her in a short lived band Texorcist, backing Tex on saxophone. Other comrades included such anomalous characters as Top Jimmy & The Rhythm Pigs, The Mentors, 45 Grave, Black Flag, Circle Jerks and Fear. GBH and Fishbone became accidental pals during two different booking mishaps. Working the illegal after hours shift, she waited on and hobnobbed with the likes of Lauren Hutton, David Lee Roth, Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi. On her first night working there she was assaulted by the singer of Suicidal Tendencies and his band as she was trying to get away on her Honda 70, which turned into an all out brawl, with bouncers attacking the band and resulting in part of the singer's ear being bit off while in a headlock on the roof of his car. After getting acclimated to the LAPD riot squad that often lined the club, the bits of ceiling that would filter down on her, the satanic raising recordings played during clean-up, the bathroom slash shooting gallery, she expanded to DJing at the out of control after-hours club slash art gallery Zero One, where she had the company of a kaleidoscope of personalities and friends ranging from Bobby Pasterelli, the Gettys, and Dave Edmunds, while pal El Duce would always be urinating on someone. Doby's friendship with El Duce continued and she managed to get him on the now infamous segment of The Wally George Show, and accompanied him on a raucous unforgetable KXLU radio interview. After this club closed and migrated up the street to Hollywood Blvd. under the name Raji's, she continued working and playing, forming a rockabilly band Doby Daenger and The Hi-Hi Boys and recorded another 45, "Dum-Dum" (b/w "Time & Again") on Good Lookin' Records. Doby continued performing and recording in the Los Angeles area throughout the 1980s with high-caliber musicians such as Billy Bremner, Spyder Mittleman, Jerry Angel, Jimmy Roberts, Carlo Nuncio and Keith "Tree" Barry. A CD was produced by Billy with members of The Plimsouls in attendance. Billy and Spyder often performed in her band at other local hang outs: The Gaslight, The Central and Club Lingerie, to name a few. In 1991, after befriending Joey Ramone, Doby relocated to New York City, and began moving back in the direction of punk. During this time she produced a live TV show titled, Doby-TV on local station Manhattan Neighborhood Network that ran until 2005. The notorious underground filmmaker Nick Zedd was a frequent and entertaining guest, as well as local scenesters from the punk / art scene. At the encouragement of Joey's brother Doby began writing a monthly column in a popular underground punk rock newspaper that rapidly gained a cult following in the East Village underground scene, and was published in The New York Press as well as a few publications in London and Los Angeles. She later turned this into a book, Surfin' Asphalt, after the name of the column. Late nights, She could be found regularly DJing at seedy ungentrified hangouts such as Motor City in the Lower East Side, as well as a weekly broadcast on pirate radio station Steal This Radio. Before relocating back to Los Angeles, she formed a performance art band with robotic giant female rats, The Ratonettes, performing at her favorite stomping ground, C.B.G.B.s as her farewell gig. In 2005 she relocated back to Los Angeles and played bit parts to keep the lights on notably as a regular bar patron nicknamed "Crab Cake" at The Crab Shack on My Name Is Earl (Season 2, 3, & 4), and a criminal in Jay Rondot's "The Rascal." Doby is currently animating her first book, "Surfin' Asphalt," finishing the sequel and producing the prequel as a film. Background Family Her father was from Flatbush, Brooklyn, a member of "The Dukes," street gang. He was known as "Buster" at this time and claimed they were a social club that wore top hats, sported canes and held dances. Shadow Morton would later clarify this, as he also belonged to a gang in this neighborhood then, called "The Tigers," that attended these dances-with chains and knives. His parents David and Kate were immigrants from Germany with mostly German and Russian roots. David, rumored to be J.D. Salinger's cousin, owned a lingerie company. The family relocated to Los Angeles where Buster attended Hamilton High School, according to him, in attendance with Joel Grey. Robert Blake and Hymie the Robot. He became President of the school, captain of football team, and met his high school sweetheart and soon to be wife. Doby's mother was from Denver, born to Russian immigrants. Her maternal grandfather, Sam Perlmutter was in the 11th or 12th Cavalry assigned to and did pursue Pancho Villa across the desert. His commanding officer in this event was a guy named Frank, who he said saved his life, which became Doby's middle name.