San Diego Reader

Hey SDMA, HERE's the hip-hop!

CONTENTS:

1 – 75 Secrets About 75 Local Musicians

2 – Rocker Chicks Do San Diego

3 – Underage Swing Dancers Battle Local Law

4 - Hello Satan: Dark Metal In Dago

5 - History Of Death Metal – comic strip by JAS & Scott Pentzer

6 - Goths For Jesus: Pastor Dave’s Christian Goths

7 - Racist Rock: Do The White Thing

8 - Creepy Old Guy Goes To A Rave

9 – Where’s the Reader’s Hip-Hop Coverage?

10 – Hey San Diego Music Awards: Here Are 10 Songs That Define San Diego Hip-Hop

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75 SECRETS ABOUT 75 SAN DIEGO MUSICIANS

We asked 75 locals in the music biz to reveal something about themselves that few would ever know or guess.

GAYLE SKIDMORE: “One thing people are always surprised by is that I enjoy backpacking and surfing. I guess I don’t seem like the type. I hear that musicians are always up late a night because they are afraid of sunlight.”

JOEY GUEVARA, I WISH I: “I party with monster java and mango suckers!”

JUNE CATE, I WISH I: “I'm a mellow drunk. I did pee walk once on my way home from Nu Nu's.”

NICK, THE DMONSTRATIONS: “I am double jointed in my elbows.”

GREASER, SINGER/GUITARIST: “I got hit by a car when I was 3.”

BIG DADDY MASCARAS, DRUMMER THEE CORSAIRS: “I love lounge music.”

REX NAVARRO, BASSIST: “I shoot blanks.”

MC FLOW: “My friends and I were celebrating my 30th birthday down in Mexico, and I was dared to make an appearance at the party wearing nothing but my birthday suit and a birthday crown. I did it, and I wasn’t even that drunk!”

GREG LASWELL: “Sometimes, when no one is around, I’ll pop in an Avril Lavigne album. And thoroughly enjoy myself.”

MARK DECERBO, FOUR EYES/ROCKOLA GUITARIST: ”Believe it, or not, I can be kinda funny after a few beers.”

JOEY HARRIS, GUITARIST: “I love Mariah Carey.”

TED FRIEDMAN, GUITARIST GRAVEDIGGER V: “I golf naked.”

ELI LIEBERMAN, SINGER/GUITARIST STRIVE ROOTS: “I like all music and try not to judge, but Justin Timberlake really makes me uncomfortable.”

BILLY HORVATH, CRUNCHBERRY GUITARIST: “I lock myself in a closet at night dressed as a ballerina, work myself into a frenzy by listening to Dokken and then escape and go kill butterflies with a pistol.”

HANS JENSEN, COLLAGE MENAGE: “I ran away from home when I was fifteen and I cheated on a test in high school by writing the answers on my arm.”

FRITZ JENSEN, COLLAGE MENAGE: “I have a flower garden for my love.”

COLIN CLYNE: “When I was nineteen, and drunk, I got a Superman tattoo, after seeing one on a poster of Bon Jovi (argh, cringe).”

BRIAN KARSCIG, LOUIS XIV: “A well-known promoter once made posters of the group, and was selling them without our permission. They were extremely ugly, and kids were being ripped off. I walked up to him in the club, asked him how many more were there, grabbed them out of his hands, unzipped my pants, and urinated all over them in front of him.”

BRENDA XU: “[I watch] reality shows, like America's Next Top Model.”

DAVE HOWARTH, BLUE SHIFT GUITARIST: “We're a bunch of nerds, disguised as dorks.”

CJ GLADSTONE, SINGER ROSES ON HER GRAVE: “I own 4 cars and only one works”

NATE MILLION, DRUMMER: “I am an avid gardener and have a bunch of plants.”

BEN TAYLOR, DRUMMER: “I do have a serious side, at times.”

MARK GOFFENEY, BASSIST: “I’m a degreed martial artist with about nine years training in Okinawan Kenpo.”

DAVE GILBERT, GUITARIST: “I actually do give a sh--t.”

JACKSON PRICE, SINGER/GUITARIST: “I once spent three nights in SD county jail for resisting arrest and drunk in public.”

JOEY SUTERA, SINGER/BASSIST: “I'm scared of lizards, they freak me out. They're so fast, they could crawl right up your sleeve or, god forbid, down your pants, before you knew what happened.”

BRENDAN CONCANNON, DRUMMER: “I worked through college as a ‘Mad Scientist’ at kids’ birthday parties. I nearly burnt or maimed so many kids, I’m surprised no lawsuit was ever filed against me.”

ADAM GIMBEL, ROOKIE CARD: “I'm painfully shy.”

ANDREW McNALLY, DRUMMER: “I cultivate young minds.”

DYLAN MARTINEZ, GUITARIST: “I was once a Marine and I served during Desert Storm.”

BENNIE HERRON: “I don't play video games, but I am an internet head.”

AMBER OJEDA: “I have an extreme phobia of L.A. freeways!”

ALAN IGLESIAS, GUITARIST: “In my ‘other life,’ I’m a 3D animation specialist working on all kinds of visual effects, including for feature films.”

SAM ROBERTSON, GUITARIST OFF TRACK: “I had a bit role in the movie Almost Famous.”

JIMMY ZADAI, BASSIST: “I spent four years in the military.”

JAYE FURLONGER, BASSIST: “I collect ceramic cats.”

BEEZELEY, DRUMMER NAUTICAL DISASTER: “People tend to make me uncomfortable.”

ALFONSO DE LA ESPRIELLA, SINGER/GUITARIST: “I really enjoy a good death metal band. For a while.”

BRIAN SHEERIN, MOWER VOCALIST: “We all have big hearts.”

JASON WILEY, SINGER/GUITARIST MOONTUCKY RISIN: “[I like] cigarettes, Burger King french fries, and of course midget porn.”

MOLLY JENSON: “I'm going to start teaching group classes at 24 hour fitness (if I pass my training courses).”

KEITH JACOBSON: “I graduated from college as a Ceramic Engineer. (And yes, Ceramic Engineers do make toilets!)”

JOSH DAMIGO: “I can name all the U.S. Presidents. In order.”

JON BISHOP: “Never broke a bone, but I've had six shoulder dislocations. Once during sex, which was pretty embarrassing.”

JODI V: “I constantly get told that I come off as intimidating or snobby, but the truth is that I’m sweet and very interested in what you have to say.”

JJ MORIN: “Babies think I hung the moon. My picture must be hanging in the Baby green room. Even as we read, infants from newborns to toddlers are out there on the streets, looking all over for me. I am Babyman.”

JENN GRINELS: “I'm so boring, though there is a certain amount of alcohol that causes me to break into the National Anthem. Once was under the Eiffel Tower. Well, at Paris Las Vegas.”

HARGO: “I've always been a pensive person, and I’m really interested in astrophysics, Chinese acupuncture, as well as physiological psychology, or neuroscience, if you will. Not exactly rock ‘n’ roll, is it? But I guess I’ve always been interested in why people do what they do, and in helping people make themselves better and happier. I try to do that through my music, to the best of my ability.”

HANK EASTON, GUITARIST STEELY DAMNED: “I love to cook, and I’m pretty good at it! Of course, I love to eat, too.”

GREG DOUGLASS, GUITARIST STEVE MILLER BAND: “I'm a total dork. I have an extensive collection of original vintage horror and science fiction movie posters, and I also collected butterflies as a kid. All that's missing is the adhesive tape on my glasses. I'm a true Dweebus Americanus, disguised as a rock star.”

RACHAEL GORDON: “I like running out into the ocean and swimming at night alone.In my birthday suit or whatever I'm wearing just to get my head together, because it feels good. Then I'll get out and lay in the sand and drink whiskey. It makes me feel like there isn't anything I can't do, and there isn't.”

PAUL LIZARRGA, BASSIST: “When I was six, I asked my mom relentlessly for a Michael Jackson glitter glove. I cried when I lost it.”

EVAN ROBINSON, SINGER/KEYBOARDIST WAR STORIES: “I hate opening gifts in front of people.”

MARCOS FERNANDES: “I don’t like Brussels sprouts.”

TIM RALDO: “Although my music and stage show is very violent, love is still the most powerful feeling in my heart. I really don’t wish harm on anyone. Unless they happen to be looking for it.”

JD BOUCHARDE: “I’m huge in Paraguay.”

SIMEON FLICK, SINGER/GUITARIST: “I have this irrational fascination with the shallow frivolity of tabloid journalism, in both its TV and print manifestations.”

RICHARD VAUGHAN, GUITARIST: “I'm a huge fan of William Shatner.”

STUART SCLATER, BASSIST: “I can't share milk.”

CONOR RILEY, GUITARIST/ORGANIST: “I wake up every morning and watch the first fifteen minutes of a random Saved By The Bell episode to get the day started.”

DAVID HURLEY, DRUMMER: “I suck at basketball.”

BOB GARRITY, SINGER/BASSIST SCRIBE AMIDST THE LIONS: “I have a nipple in my armpit.”

ADAM JACOBS, GUITARIST/KEYBOARDIST: “I have big knees.”

KRISTOFER TOWNE, SINGER/GUITARIST: “I have one really big toe.”

NATE BALL, DRUMMER: “I weigh 65 pounds.”

JAMIE RENO: “I've never illegally downloaded a single song in my life.”

JAC: “My alter-ego is Brown Sinatra. Hang around me long enough and you will know why.”

VOZ, STILL ILL SINGER: “I drool.”

TONY GRIESGRABER, BASSIST/STICK PLAYER: “I can't drive stick shift. Quite the issue while touring Europe.”

STEVEN BRADFORD, SINGER/GUITARIST GET BACK LORETTA: “All of us in the band are dating each other.”

DAN BOISSY, SAX PLAYER STEPPING FEET: “I once carried a 203 bowling average, and bowled 11 strikes in a row.”

REX HERMOGINO: “When I was in middle school, I attempted to do standup comedy at a talent show and got booed off the stage. No career there for me. I'll just stick to my music.”

RUSS CHRIST, AKA THE MUSICAL MIND RAPIST: “I listen to Ani DiFranco.”

JASON BANG: “Well, aside from my fear of being strangled to death in my sleep by midgets dressed as Pirates, I'm really good at giving butt massages. But should I really believe everything that my Grandfather tells me?”

ROSEY BYSTRAK, SDdialedin blogger: “I was class president and a homecoming princess in high school. I actually had to wear a tiara. For a whole week. Scary.”

SCOTT PACTOR, catdirtsez blogger: “I dislike children.”

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“It’s not easy being a chick rocker,” says Vv Loveland of Scary Mary. “One time at Scolari’s, when I went up to play, this guy shows me his penis while I’m onstage. He was drunk and dancing and jiggling it around and I told him ‘Mine’s bigger than yours’ and he put it away.”

She says her fiancé Patrick brings a camera to shows and gets to witness fan lust firsthand. “He hears all the guys talk about how they want to touch me in naughty places. I dance around and I'm alive so I guess people get the wrong idea. It's funny these guys have no clue who he is, Patrick just takes it in stride. He tells me after the show how many drunk guys wanted to put their hands up my skirt.”

“Sometimes,” she says, “the drunks are onstage. We played before Terror Whore at Scolari’s and, next thing I see, the lead singer is barfing everywhere in the bar. Does he stop playing? No, he gets down on the floor of the bar and starts humping the ground where his spew is. Yikes! The strangest thing was the band was totally unfazed by his behavior, they acted like he f-ks barf puddles all the time.”

“At the same show, there was a fight outside when I was leaving and the bartender had to clean that up as well as the puke inside. He doesn't get paid enough for that sh-t.” Loveland’s new side band is VV Morgue (“Scary Mary is in hibernation for now”).

Singer Amber Ojeda says “For a young girl trying to get recognition in the music industry, your morals are tested on a daily basis. My first experience meeting a record producer seemed to go very smoothly. He told me he loved my voice and liked my style. However, as soon as I left to use the bathroom, he told my manager that he couldn’t wait to sleep with me…yes, there was a couch in his studio.”

Ojeda was later hired as lead singer and songwriter for a female vocal group, but she says the first recording session wasn’t much of a group effort. “The other girls were p-ssed that I was in the booth 75 percent of the time, and not them, and one of them stole my lyric book. Someone later left a comment on my website message board with the words of a poem I had written in that book, with a note bragging ‘I have something you don’t have.’ I couldn’t believe it!”

She has since gone solo, but Ojeda says would-be impresarios still assume a single female needs some kind of gimmick to succeed. “I was recently offered a record deal, but they didn’t even want me to use my name or sing my music. They just wanted my look, and they wanted me to sing hard rock, which is so different from what I actually sing. I felt totally disrespected for my voice and musical style, like a piece of meat.”

This year, Ojeda has aligned herself with Sellaband, which connects performers to investors interested in their music. According to Sharon Holleran of A&R Management, “It’s a free service the artist signs up for, where ‘Believers’ buy stock in the music they love. The Believers then become like a street team, one who has a vested interest in promoting the artist, because they all continue to make money off that artist’s success.”

Sellaband.com posts music samples by participating artists, for potential Believers to review. Purchasing a single Part (ie stock) in an artist costs $10, with no quantity limit. Purchasers get a limited edition CD by that artist, plus a percentage of income from downloaded music files. Sellaband sells tracks at 50 cents per download through Amazon, with Believers receiving a percentage based on the size of their Part investment in that artist.

Once an artist has sold 5000 Parts at $10 each ($50,000), Sellaband provides the performer with a range of recording, mixing, and production services, at no charge. “The company is owned by former music executives from the big labels,” says Holleran. “They’re doing a lot of advertising, to bring in more potential Believers.”

Amber Ojeda joined Sellaband on February 24. Within the first thirty days, she reported selling 100 shares of herself, totaling $1000.

Local rock chick Eve Selis may not sell shares of herself, but she WAS involved in a government-related cover-up.

On September 9, 2000, she was to sing the national anthem at the America West Arena in Phoenix. The performance was supposed to be capped by an American bald eagle being released from a balcony to circle the arena and land on its trainer's wrist. However, the bird instead chose to land on top of Selis's head. She maintained her composure and even managed to bow for the audience, most of whom likely thought the landing had been planned that way.

Says Selis on her website, "The trainer asked us not to speak of it, for fear of the eagle losing his congressional approval. This bird, which is an endangered species, was the only bald eagle sanctioned by the U.S. government to fly free at sporting events, rallies, military celebrations, etc. So we understood and kept it on the down low. We recently heard that the bird had retired, so what the heck. The truth must be told."

Selis says her music has been legally downloaded over two million times on the Internet due to her successful self-marketing. She's sold 35,000 CDs, her music is heard in four movies, and she has performed on CNBC, ESPN, and the BBC. She has opened for Travis Tritt, Crosby Stills and Nash, the Doobie Brothers, Joan Osborne, Heart, Dwight Yoakam, Garry Allan, Chris Isaak, and Hootie & the Blowfish.

The Selis band frequently includes "Cactus" Jim Soldi and Sharon Whyte who, along with Mark Intravaia (the Monroes) have their own band, Cactus Twang & Whyte. Soldi played with Johnny Cash for four years and Ricky Skaggs for two years. She's frequently seen around town playing with Tim Flannery and the duo Berkley Hart. Her album Angels and Eagles was released in early 2008.

Last year, when Anya Marina appeared on the Sirius Radio program "The Sh-t Show” with comedian Andy Dick, she took it in stride when Dick introduced her as “Nuts Anya Chin.” “We made out once, I know you don’t like to admit it,” Dick told her. “We were drunk and I took advantage of you. I mouth raped you.”

“Well, it wasn’t really my choice,” Marina replied with a laugh. “I did ask for it, though. I was wearing a miniskirt.” Marina sang backup on Dick’s all-music album, and the duo performed a bit of one tune, singing “Loving you is very nice, but not as nice as drugs.” Later on the show, she played her tune about Lindsay Lohan, “Lindsay Goes To Rehab.” Dick interrupted to announce “I wish I’d mouth raped her [Lohan] too.”

Marina’s fame has been spreading far afield of San Diego. She was name-checked in TV Guide and on Entertainment Tonight after performing at the September 1 ‘07 wedding of Grey’s Anatomy star Kate Walsh’s and film executive Alex Young. Marina played at the couple’s rehearsal dinner in Ojai and sang the newlyweds’ post-wedding dance song, “Someday My Prince Will Come,” from her album Miss Halfway. Music from Miss Halfway has been featured on Grey’s Anatomy.

A TV ad for Jeep features a song by Marina, “You Remind Me,” co-written with Steve Poltz.

Few chick rockers rock as hard as the all-female Zeppelin cover band Zepparella. “We got dissed on the Howard Stern show!” says drummer Clementine. “He played our version of ‘The Lemon Song’…someone told us about it and we downloaded it off the internet.”

Stern was discussing a new compilation of female tribute bands “Girls Got Rhythm,” which also features tracks by Hell’s Belles (AC/DC), Ms. Fits (Misfits), Mistress Of Reality (Black Sabbath), Cheap Chick (Cheap Trick) and the Iron Maidens (duh).

“Howard said he didn't know why in the heck anyone would ever put out a record like this, he wanted to know why anyone would buy it. He was just dissing the concept. Honestly, I was wondering similar things about the compilation too, Howard wasn't saying much that I didn't agree with. When I want to listen to a record, I wouldn’t usually think ‘tribute band.’ But, even though I sort of agreed with his comment, I know there are a lot of great musicians on this record.”

Her bandmates didn’t take Stern’s commentary so lightly. “The girls have a problem with Howard judging naked chicks, but I don't think anyone's dragging those dumb girls on there and it makes for good entertainment. I think it's funny. Howard cracks me up, I listen to him pretty regularly.”

A.M. Vibe vocalist Lisah has a rockin’ story, about the time she got her throat slit on Valentines Day.

“It was the end result of a horse accident,” she says. “My C4 and C5 discs were touching each other, and I had Spinal Stenosis, which means my spinal chord was being smashed. You couldn't even see the protective canal around my spinal cord.” She was told that virtually any movement could cause crippling damage.

“It was horrific,” she says. “The only option was spinal fusion surgery, unless I wanted to live a sedentary life. But I was very concerned about my vocals. My surgeon told me they’d be cutting through or very close to a nerve that affects my vocal chords and voicebox. He couldn't guarantee that my voice would go back to normal.” While awaiting her operation, she says “I lost all the strength in my arms and hands, and trying to play guitar was brutal. I had to sit down to play, and eventually I had to stop playing at all. I can’t even tell you how many Advil I ate.”

On February 14, 2007, “They [doctors] went in through my neck to my spine. Afterwards, I found out that they discovered a piece of my crushed disc lodged in my spinal chord, which could have paralyzed me for life just from turning around or bending over.”

A little over a year later, she says “No harm was done to my vocals! Sometimes my shoulders and neck get tired…I have a Titanium plate in my neck, and sometimes I can feel it in there behind my esophagus, especially when I laugh really hard, then I can totally feel it. It’s funny and strange all at the same time.”

Elan is a female Latin performer based in San Diego, who counts among her rockin’ guitarists Slash of Guns N’ Roses and Velvet Revolver. Her 2004 Street Child CD (sung in English) was self-written and recorded on Elan's Silverlight Records ("a home studio in my apartment in La Jolla"). The album earned the then-22-year-old two Rolling Stone en Español awards in 2004.

"Some fans who've followed me for years thought it was weird, having Slash on the record and in the video [for Street Child]," says Elan of the album's guest guitarist. "But I grew up on hard rock; the first rock concert I ever saw was Guns N' Roses in Guadalajara, when I was, like, eight years old." Elan says the Velvet Revolver guitarist "definitely likes to drink beer, he's into it! He always had one in his hand."

With her 2005 album London Express, Elan gave fans another reason to cry "what the...?" On the cover is a photo of her with her long blond mane shorn to jawline-length. "Some people act real upset. They say, 'How could you?'... I get insane fan mail. I got a letter about a pink jacket I wore to an awards show in Mexico, and it was practically a death threat if I ever wore it again. I don't want to get strangled over my fashion choices."

In August 2006, Elan filed an 11-count lawsuit against Wailers singer Elan Atias, who had begun using just the name Elan for solo recordings. “This is the kind of thing that made my brother and I start our own company,” says the local Elan. “They don’t care about music or who they hurt.” The lawsuit alleges "craft, yet overt maneuvering" to take over local Elan’s given name (which she trademarked and has always recorded and performed under) by defendants Atias, Interscope Records, and public relations firm the Mitch Schneider Organization.

The other Elan's PR company used to represent local Elan, and a link on their website that formerly led to local Elan’s site now sends users to Mr. Atias's webpage instead. Interscope Records told the Los Angeles Times’ "Calendar" section in 1999 that signing local Elan was their "second highest priority after Enrique Iglesias' new album."

“I am shocked that now, my former PR firm and a label that actually wanted to sign me, would try this,” says local Elan. “They thought they could just run us over and get away with it and we wouldn’t say anything. They were wrong!”

"If you take a look at the timing, you have to be very disappointed in how these music industry players behaved," said lawyer Matt Rifat of Manning And Marder, Kass, Ellrod, Ramirez LLP, who is representing local Elan in San Diego federal district court. “The sequence of events is unbelievable. Interscope and the Mitch Schneider Organization deal with Elan one day and the next they are slapping her name onto Atias, who never went by the one name until this year…it is as unseemly as it is illegal."

Elan's new album is What Can Be Done at This Point.

Lindsey Troy was once part of a rock duo with her sister Anna, the Troys. “We were signed to Elektra on my fifteenth birthday, but the record was never released” says Lindsey says of the album she and her sister Anna recorded in 2002. “They kept pushing the release date back and they didn't do what they had promised, which was to make a window of time where they would only promote our single. Instead, they were pushing a bunch of different singles to radio stations at the same time, including Missy Elliott's. I think there was a lot of turmoil within the label, because they were on the verge of folding into Atlantic.”

“Pretty much everyone who originally worked at the label when we were signed lost their jobs when Elektra folded,” says Lindsey. “I believe Elektra still owns all of the recordings that they paid for. We don’t have the masters but we do have a copy of the album, which is nice for memories and what not. Elektra owns the recordings but not the songs so, theoretically, if we ever wanted to, we could sell those songs to someone else.”

Lindsey Troy says neither sister regrets their album as a duo going unheard. “Anna and I were getting older and couldn't really relate to those songs anymore. We both kind of felt that our fetters had been taken off, we were finally free to play and do whatever we wanted. And to grow up.”

Cindy Lee Berryhill’s song “When Did Jesus Become a Republican?” has spent the better part of the last year being featured at Neil Young’s “Living with War Today” website, where songwriters are encouraged to submit political music. “They actually have a kind of ranking system there for the protest songs,” she says. At one point, her tune went from ‘Newly Added Songs’ to number 13. “I didn’t even know it had been added until L.A. Air America radio called and said they found my song on Neil’s site and would I do an interview.”

Among others who offered political songs for inclusion were Steve Earle and Kris Kristofferson. Berryhill says she went through the regular submission process, and the song’s embrace on Young’s webpage is unrelated to the fact that, a few years ago, she worked for Young’s manager Elliot Roberts and Lookout Management.

“One day at that job, I was to go to the Santa Monica airport and pick up David Crosby and bring him back to the office. I had this 17-year-old Toyota station wagon that was filled with boxes and chairs in the back 'cause I was moving and here’s David Crosby climbing in.” She says the two of them talked about “science fiction books and terraforming of the planet Mars.”

Featuring backup vocals by local underground comic icon Mary Fleener, “When Did Jesus Become a Republican?” includes lyrics such as:

“When did Jesus turn the tables on tender and join the money lenders?

'Stead of sharing with lepers, he's sellin’ shares of Haliburton?

When did Jesus tear away the heartland from the New York Island?

Start throwin' stones at the helpless

when you can't get health insurance?

Take away the shelters for the homeless?

This don't sound like you, Jesus.”

Berryhill performed the song at a May 2007 Songs of Protest event she organized in L.A., where she had a notable brush with fame. “Jackson Browne hung out with us after the show,” says Cindy Lee. “After my little set, I introduced the next songwriter and made my way to the back of the room. On my way, someone at a table touched my sleeve and said, ‘That was great.’ I patted them on the shoulder and whispered 'thanks.' As I was walking away, I realized it was Jackson Browne!

“After the show, Jackson came up to me and told me how much he loved the show, and I noticed he'd even bought a poster. I introduced him to my husband Paul Williams, who started the first rock magazine in 1966, Crawdaddy! Jackson looks at Paul for a minute and says, ‘Wow, I haven’t seen you since you were 15 years old.’ They were both actually 17 when they met in New York City, during that first year of Crawdaddy! So it was all very cool, and Jackson has shown an interest in joining us at one of the next shows.”

More Songs of Protest concerts are planned. The multiperformer event is sponsored by Neil Young’s web project “Living with War Today,” which at this writing includes around 1900 songs, ranked according to visitor votes. Other locals represented on the site include Joel Rafael, Mark DeCerbo of Four Eyes, and Reverend Madison Shockley, a pastor at Carlsbad’s Pilgrim United Church of Christ.

Jenn Grinels grew up in Northern California, before landing at UC Irvine to study musical theater. After graduating, she moved to San Diego and began appearing in local stage productions, which she still does from time to time. One of her most challenging roles was in reverse-drag, playing bearded rock musician Yitzhak in the musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch, at the Cygnet Theatre. Most recently, she portrayed Janis Joplin in the '60s musical “Beehive,” at the Theatre in Old Town,

She tours and plays locally as a solo singer/songwriter. “Many of my songs are inspired by my boyfriend, Marine Captain David T. Russell, who was recently re-deployed overseas. I write about the pain of separation, and how difficult that can be. Before he left, quite a few of his coworkers and guys from his platoon came out to see me play. A lot of them brought their girlfriends and wives, or they bought one of my CDs to send home to their girlfriends and wives. It’s amazing to play for people who so strongly relate to the music. I just got an order from a friend serving in Iraq right now, who bought six CDs because she wants to give them to fellow marines for Christmas.”

“There are a couple of songs on the new album that deal with [my boyfriend's] past deployments. He happens to be highly decorated -- Silver Star, Bronze Star, Purple Heart -- which he doesn't like to talk about, but I'm very proud of him.”

The story of how Captain Russell earned his Purple Heart and Silver Star awards was featured in a December 2006 GQ magazine article, "A Few Good Medals."

“They ran a photo of him smiling and covered in blood,” says Grinels. “That picture was taken right after he was shot. One of his Marines joked with him, 'Sir, can you try to look injured?'”

The couple met two years ago when a group of Marines caught Grinels performing at a pub. “I heckled the Marines from the stage,” says Grinels. “I made them put their arms around each other and do a kick line while I sang. When I got off stage, Dave approached me and said 'You have characteristics I'd like to pass onto my children.' It worked!”

Grinels says the captain helped get her new album made. “He acted as executive producer and was involved every step of the way,” she says. “He gave feedback on the music, offered a few lyrics here and there, was present for the recording when he got back from his tour, enlisted graphic designers, and dealt with the duplication company. He also wrote some of the mass emails, and he’s always my roadie when he's available.”

While touring, Grinels often performs at functions organized by KVN, the Key Volunteer Network (“Basically, the military wives club”), and she’s looking into a related charity in order to donate a portion of her CD sales (“Probably Operation Homefront”).

You may have heard Victoria Robertson singing in the chorus with the San Diego Opera over the past several years (M. Butterfly, etc.) or soloing the national anthem at a Miramar Air Show. Or you may have seen her modeling in international print ads and catalogs for Kyocera cell phones and Road Runner Sports. If you hung around La Jolla's Living Room on Thursday nights, you might have caught her with acoustic guitar (Taylor model 414, made in El Cajon) and perhaps a band, performing what she describes as "acoustic-pop-Sheryl-Crow-meets-Jewel-with-a-touch-of-Sarah-McLachlan"-style originals.

If you're in the armed forces, however, you probably know her as Miss USO San Diego, a post she's held since shortly after relinquishing her Miss San Diego crown from the 1998 Miss America competition. "People think the USO died with Bob Hope, World War II, or maybe Vietnam, but the entertainment department is still out there playing all kinds of training bases, all over the world, in war and in peacetime. We've even landed on aircraft carriers, coming down in this little plane on a postage-stamp-sized spot on the ocean and then playing on a stage at the flight line!"

Accommodations for her and her backup band are paid for by the USO when they perform far-flung places like Germany, England, the Netherlands, and Thule Air Base in Greenland (where only 700 troops were stationed). "The A-list performers are building morale in the war zones. We get sent to the other places, where the support troops are warming up." She says she'd have no problem going to a hot zone like Iraq. "I'll sing wherever they send me, wherever they think I can do some good. No matter what your politics are, whether you're for or against the war itself, the men and women in uniform are just doing their job. They deserve support."

Only one other state has a Miss USO -- New York -- and that post is voted annually via pageants and judges. "I'm told they'll let me be Miss USO San Diego until either the troops don't like me anymore or I can't sing. I hope that's a long time away. Boy, that'll be a sad day when they come up to me and say, 'It's time.'"

Originally from New Jersey, Robertson graduated from UC San Diego with a Visual Arts degree. Her album, Say New You,was released in August 2007, and her album Celebrating is often sent to troops overseas.

In February 2008, Robertson won the "Carlsbad to Karlovy Vary" vocal competition for the La Jolla Symphony and Chorus Young Artist program. Karlovy Vary is Carlsbad's "sister city" in the Czech Republic. At SDSU, Robertson is a part of the Artist Diploma Program. She runs her own side business entertaining at children's parties, Princess Parties and Friends.

San Diego native Rachael Gordon makes music ranging from classic sixties styled folk to straight ahead rock and roll. “ I’m into all sorts of things,” she says. “There's some garage rock, some powerpop and some folk. I grew up in the 70's, so there's all those influences from AM radio.”

Asked her influences, she starts off with “Joan Jett! All that Runaways and early solo stuff! And I really love Linda Thompson, anything she's done, Fairport Convention. And a guilty pleasure is early Heart, there's a folk side while still rocking out.”

Her recording sessions are known for including dozens of San Diego’s best-known and most accomplished talents. “There’s Hector Penalosa of the Zeros and Flying Colour, Bart Mendoza of the Shambles and Manual Scan, Ray Brandes of the Tell Tale Hearts and Mystery Machine, and AJ Croce, they’ve all written songs for me. And Frank Barajas of JuJu Eyeball and Richard Livoni of Comanche Moon have come up with some real great tunes. That's, what, 1000 years of songwriting experience?”

I asked her if it’s ever hard to get promoters to take her seriously because of her gender? “Absolutely, that’s always a problem. It's very hard to get someone to stop looking at your ass and listen to what your saying...believe it or not, it’s still considered pretty wild to be a girl fronting a rock band in this day and age. Occasionally, you'll see a girl fronting a punk band, but that doesn’t count.”

Asked about her worst gig, she says “It wasn't great being called a Nancy Sinatra wannabe in the San Diego Union in a review. But I think the worst was when I was forced to sing the Mary Tyler Moore show theme at a coffeehouse [laughs].”

Wild Weekend – an all-girl (mostly) tribute to local '70s/'80s punk innovators the Zeros -- signed a deal in November 2007 to release two vinyl singles with Spanish indie Munster Records. In the '90s, when the Zeros reunited, the same label released an album and three singles for the Chula Vista rockers.

On November 11, 2007, Wild Weekend actually found themselves performing in the Zeros' stead when the sometime-reunited band was unavailable to play Los Angeles punk club the Masque's 30th-anniversary show. The Plugz, the Eyes, and the Skulls also performed in the legendary venue, which operated for years in the basement of the X-rated Pussycat Theater flagship locale.

Former Zero Robert "El Vez" Lopez, who had caught Wild Weekend that summer at North Park'sPink Elephant bar, recommended the band for the recording project and anniversary show. Lopez's endorsement came to the group's attention when the Munster label MySpace'd the band with an offer to release their music.

"We just made these recordings for fun when we first started playing," says singer Maren Parusel, who also performs in Squiddo (with former Zero Hector Peñalosa) and the Baja Bugs ("They're kind of rough").

The Wild Weekend discs will include versions of "Don't Push Me Around" with "Wimp" on the flipside, and "Black and White" with "Cosmetic Couple" on the B-side. On the cover art, Wild Weekend struck the same poses as the Zeros did for their releases.

Wild Weekend lost their girl-group status in late 2007, after drummer Melissa (aka "Christy Beats") and bassist Kaitlin Kait-O left to concentrate on their own combo, the Atoms. The newly co-ed Wild Weekend now includes guitarist Kelly Alvarez, former Prayers/Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower drummer Brian Hill, and Sexies bassist Wendy Jeffers.

In April 2008, the band released two 7-inch singles (tributes to the Zeros, 'natch), on Spain's Munster Records. Around the same time, they entered the studio with Keith Milgaten from Vision of a Dying World.

(Thanks to Bart Mendoza for Wild Weekend segment)

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UNDERAGE SWING DANCERS BATTLE LOCAL LAW

The San Diego Municipal code defines a “teenage dance” as “any event open to the public that allows dancing by teenagers.” A teenager is “any person who is at least fourteen or more years of age but less than twenty years of age.”

Some of the operating provisions in the Teen Dance code (originally drafted in 1967) certainly make sense. No alcohol can be sold, served or consumed on the premises. Nobody has a problem with this, except for perhaps a few alcoholic teens.

Then SEC. 33.1585: “It is unlawful for any person to allow a minor who is thirteen years of age but less than eighteen years of age to be on the premises where there is a teenage dance being held unless such person is accompanied by a parent or legal guardian.”

The city code, for many years, made it virtually impossible for Alan Minton to do what he wants to do - run an all age swing dance venue, the Rocket, where teens (and young adults and anyone else) can dress up and get down like forties-era hipsters, withOUT having to tow along one parental unit per teen. Originating in El Cajon (as Rocket Ranch), with country, ska and punk nights, the twice-weekly swing dances were – around 2000 - being held at Vasa Hall, on El Cajon Boulevard near 30th street.

In Minton’s opinion, the ordinance’s restrictions are unfair and based on mistaken assumptions. “Their justification is that dances, dance venues, draw gangs and drugs. But I don’t think anyone’s ever proven that’s the case.”

The San Diego City Council maintains (SEC. 33.1581) that “the operations of teenage dances present an environment with the demonstrated potential for excessive noise generation and disorderly conduct by patrons, particularly at closing time...the Council also finds that dances involving teenagers have the demonstrated potential to attract gang and drug activity.”

Minton says this is ridiculous. “I always read about how we need more positive activities for kids. Now you’ve got one, kids are voluntarily stepping away from negative things in their lives and stepping into something that’s really almost sickeningly wholesome. And you can’t allow them to do this [dance] because somebody else might do something wrong?”

He says he was unaware of the ordinance’s guidelines until around September 1998. “I got up on the [Rocket] stage the following week and announced that anyone who was under 18 and didn’t have a parent would have to leave, and I’d refund their money. We gave back eight hundred some dollars right there on the spot and turned another thirty or forty away that night. Then business just went into the toilet.”

“Soma had to go out and get a concert permit. Meaning that kids could be there unattended until ten, they just couldn’t dance. But that would be difficult for us because swing is all about dancing. What makes it legal to have the same people, the same bands, everything the same except the dancing? This kind of thing [swing] doesn’t attract gangs. The agenda they’re still pushing is to have us adhere to a rigid set of rules. I’m finally of the opinion that they can’t legally do that...they can’t come back and say [someone under eighteen] can be at the Sports Arena or the Coors Amphitheater where adults are, where liquor is served, but you’re not allowed to be at a non-alcoholic swing dance!”

When the City Council scheduled its next meeting, Minton showed up and signed on to the list of citizens who wanted to address the Council. “I was told I’d have three minutes but they cut it to two. I was halfway through getting to my point when Byron Wear said ‘Thank you for showing up.’ ” He says that no indication was given that the Council would consider revising the dance laws.

On December 22nd 1998, Rocket supporters held a rally at downtown’s Civic Center Concourse to “Save Swing for Under 18,” hoping to bring attention to the ordinance. Minton says that more than four hundred people attended. “Barbara Warden from the city council came down on the day of the rally. Juan Vargas danced with the kids and talked about the positive aspects of what we’re doing.” He says he was told that the proposal to update the ordinance was “on the fast track (he laughs). Yeah, really, that’s what they said.”

The drive to revise the law seemed to have supporters on the City Council itself. “I say let the kids dance,” Barbara Warden said in a December statement. “While I believe that keeping our children safe is among our highest priorities, I also believe that we must remain receptive to change, especially when trying to provide alternative activities and opportunities for San Diego youths who might otherwise choose unsupervised or illegal activities.”

Warden said “There may have been good and valid reasons for this law in the '60s. To many adults in 1967, some dance moves were considered shocking. But we’re certainly smart enough to realize that this law was not intended to preclude wholesome after-school and other non-drinking social activities so desperately needed for teenagers in today’s society.”

Warden then sent a memo to City Attorney Casey Gwinn, asking that an amendment to the ordinance be drafted which would “protect our children while allowing for their participation in organized, supervised dance activities.”

The Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee met in the City Administration Building, to look at the ordinance and make some suggestions as to revisions and deletions. City Council members on the board included Barbara Warden (chairperson), Christine Kehoe (Vice Chair), Harry Mathis, George Stevens, and Byron Wear. Several members of the public stood up to voice their support for updating the code. Specifically, to change the ordinance so that teens could be supervised without having to bring their own chaperone and to allow dance events to be open to all ages.

Minton from the Rocket spoke once again and was allowed a little more time. “Then Kristine Kehoe got involved. She and Barbara Warden set everything up in motion...they seemed very receptive to what we were doing, very supportive. They referred us to a committee to try to draw up the language that they could approve. So they set us up with the vice squad and the police department (laughs). Now you tell me what I’m gonna get out of either one of those guys! The vice squad is opposed to any changes.”

Minton joined with several supporters to form the Teenage Dance Task Force. Their goal was to change “a hopelessly outdated and self-defeating law which keeps kids from being able to enjoy wholesome, supervised activities like dancing.” His group includes Sharon Wilson of San Diegans United for Safe Neighborhoods, Kevin Six of the San Diego Dance Institute and several parents of patrons at the Rocket.

One of the Task Force’s main problems with the ordinance is its provision that “It is unlawful for any person over the age of twenty years to enter the premises where there is a teenage dance unless that person is an employee of the premises, a parent or legal guardian, or responsible adult, accompanying a minor.”

The city does not want non-parental grown-ups mingling with the kids. By the letter of the law, I could be arrested just for showing up at the Rocket to interview and/or take photographs.

Exceptions are made for cops, emergency personnel or folks connected with the band, “provided that the entertainer or musician is restricted to those areas of the premises necessary to their performance.”

Can’t have those musicians with their loose morals mixing it up with our wholesome, untainted teenagers!

There’s actually a separate, emphatic entry (33.1593) in the code which reads “It is unlawful for any musician or entertainer performing at a teenage dance to mingle with or physically contact the patrons.”

Laws originally drafted back in the days when Jerry Lee Lewis was blowing through town, to be sure.

“The city fears that if adults who aren’t parents can freely mix with underage teens at dances,” says Minton, “then the older patrons will be able to take advantage of younger ones. Now I’ve done this for five years. You make it exclusively teens and you create a lot of problems.”

He explains, “You’ve got two hundred people from thirteen to nineteen. When you have an all ages venue, and you mix in responsible adults, college students and the younger crowd, the fifteen year olds behave more like the adults...kids behave along with the lowest common denominator. Put the adults in and it changes the whole mix [for the better].”

Other provisions Minton has difficulty with: each patron must have “a picture identification card that has been taken within the preceding two years.”

Also, there must be one adult acting as a chaperone for every thirty patrons (originally fifty, until a latterday revision). These chaperones “may not act as the ‘responsible adult’ for purposes of the curfew law,” so these adults are required IN ADDITION TO the adults who must attend with each and every underage patron.

The staff chaperones “must wear an identification badge approved by the Chief of Police.”

Finally, the ordinance states that a premises which hosts a teen dance “must close by 10:00 p.m. on any evening which is followed by a school day. The premises must close by midnight on all other evenings.”

Minton points out that “There are no such restrictions placed on any other activities from concert venues to any other event that kids are allowed to go to...they’re stipulating that my business, unlike any other business in this city, would have to close at ten o’clock.”

When the next/newest revisions to the ordinance were given to Minton to review before the next scheduled city council meeting, he says “It really wasn’t revised. It was the same old thing. Those of us who represent my point of view called and told them we weren’t going to show up for the meeting. There was no point.”

City officials in Vista spent a lot of time grappling with their own problems regarding teen activities, or the specific lack thereof. The city received a $72,717.00 federal grant to hire a consultant to advise on ways to combat teen loitering at retail centers near the high school.

One youth-oriented North County event, a dance with swing nights remarkably similar to the Rocket’s, received both community praise and official accolades.

For several years, the Vista dances were held three Fridays a month at Brengle Terrace Park’s recreation center, sponsored by the Parks and Community Services Department, part of their Late Night Out program. The San Diego Union Tribune reported that the program won an achievement award from the state and was “honored for its innovation and creativity in providing young people with a worthwhile activity.”

“This very thing in Vista,” says Minton, “they’re getting awards. Ironically enough, after that article came out, the parks and recreation department called me and asked me if I would like to take this [the Rocket] up there, in addition to running it down here.”

The same UT article pointed out the all-age mix at the Vista venue, quoting patrons aged fifteen to twenty-seven. “But we can’t do that down here,” says Minton. “It’s just weird.”

Writer Lisa Conway surveyed the scene at the Rocket while writing about swing for Swivel Magazine. “It doesn’t get much more wholesome than that. I could see there being a problem with a place like Soma where it’s an insane atmosphere.” She says that she became a regular at the dances, though she noted that “What was once a booming club is now in rapid decline. It has nothing to do with the club itself or, as some might say, the declining popularity of swing. It has to do with an archaic law that does not allow kids under eighteen to dance without their parents present unless it’s a school or church function.”

On my own first visit to the Rocket, Minton was maintaining a paternal presence just inside the front door, talking to various patrons. “We’ve never had a fight, we’ve never had a confrontation,” he told me.

He said he doesn’t miss running country and rock events. “The swing crowd is the best clientele, the best behaved and most appreciative. A lot of times, young people are getting out their angst and angriness with the vulgarity of a lot of the hip-hop stuff and this is an alternative. There’s no peer pressure here, nobody’s saying ‘let’s go have a joint’ or ‘let’s go get a beer’ or ‘how about having sex.’ It allows these young people to be young people.”

I asked if the legally mandated adult chaperones had to pay the ten dollar admission also. “Only if they participate,” said Minton. “Some of the parents come to dance so they pay. Some come to just sit. They might bring their own kids, they might bring their neighbor’s kids.”

The hall itself was a big open room with a wooden dance floor and an air force hanger style roof. It was brightly lit with white and colored light bulbs. About seventy-five people, teens and older adults, danced as a band played from the stage.

Others were sitting in chairs alongside the floor, the whole tableau looking much like a vintage high school dance only with far too many teachers. Quite a few attendees wore period swing clothes.

In pairs and groups, the dancers showed each other complex moves, picking each other up and flipping and dragging each other and, yes, even jitterbugging.

My mind automatically tinted the scene black and white. A few of the younger folks actually resembled Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, while others could have easily passed as Disneyland employees.

Nearly everyone was meticulously dressed; no greaser or slut clothes in sight. The girls were wearing tights or long dresses, guys in suits - it could have almost been a church group meeting.

One nineteen year old with the unlikely name Jacob Faust told me he’d been coming to Minton’s dances since they were held in El Cajon. “The crowd has changed. It’s a lot different. No one dresses up anymore, not like they did back then. There’s not as many hard-core fans.”

Faust said he’s always had an affinity for swing music, even before it became faddish and hip. He likes Squirrel Nut Zippers, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and he even owns his own zoot suit, square shoulder pads and all.

Seventeen year old Noah Henry (biblical and literary names are big with this crowd) looked dapper in a crisp white shirt and black pants, his dark hair neatly trimmed thin white duke style (think Sinatra circa ‘55). He said he’d been coming to the Rocket for six months. “Most everybody here knows each other. The regulars hang out up front. I started [getting into swing] by going to street fairs and stuff, and then my friends told me about this place.”

While we were talking, a perky older woman came up and told me “I’m the swing mom. You want to learn to dance?”

Not wanting to wound either my pride or her feet, I declined. The two of them trotted off happily (one might even say merrily), to dance a dance that I suspect my own mom forgot some half century ago.

Fifteen year old Brittany Krasner, a blonde with “Sassy” cover girl features, said she’d been going to the Rocket every week.

I asked her what she likes about swing. “Oh my gosh, everything. How much fun it is, the people you’re with....it’s a good activity for teens to do, really high energy.”

It’s surreal to hear the names of her favorite performers coming from her fifteen year-old lips. “Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, I like Cab Calloway, Louis Prima...my grandpa was in World War II and when I was thirteen he started showing me all his records and all his pictures. Then I went by here one time and saw some kids practicing and said ‘wait a second.’ And so I walked inside and made all my friends and got hooked.”

If given the chance, what would she want to tell the city council? “Stop being so paranoid and open up your eyes to what you’re missing. This isn’t like a rave party or a concert. This is swing dancing, this is the stuff our grandparents did. There is nothing wrong with this.”

She didn’t think that dances attract a delinquent or criminal element. “What would be safer, us out on the street trying to figure out what to do right now or being in a really healthy, supervised environment? Having a good time with our friends, all of whom don’t smoke, don’t drink and don’t do drugs.”

Though the Rocket is now no-more, Minton and his group kept busy. “We’re having some meetings of our own and putting together our proposal as to what we think is fair and reasonable and conforms to the existing requirements for young people.” He says they went to schools and churches with petitions, as well as spreading the word to patrons who may want to voice support.

“At some point, they have to demonstrate why they want this to be so restrictive. They can’t just say, ‘ah, they draw drugs and gangs.’ They’ve got to have some proof of that. They’d be even harder pressed to come up with information that public dances or concert type venues draw child molesters.”

“If they’ve got some stats to back that up, that would be beyond bizarre.”

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HELLO SATAN: DARK METAL IN SAN DIEGO

"Some rock and roll groups stand in a circle and drink cups of blood. Some get on their knees and pray to the devil. Rock and roll hypnotizes us and controls our senses." (Little Richard, quoted in 1974)

The L.A. band Slayer, formed in 1982, was among the first black metal groups to forge this permutation of heavy metal music, characterized by fast strumming, hyperactive guitar solos, distorted tones, chromatic note progressions, fractured rhythms and guttural, barely coherent vocals.

Mid-eighties headbangers like Sodom, Sepultura, Entombed and Morbid Angel willingly encouraged the term “death metal” in reference to their music, more than appropriate considering the atmosphere created by bloody album graphics, nihilist themes and lyrical obsessions with death and Apocalypticism.

Glorifying Satan (portrayed as an actual anthropomorphic being) became a popular motif and marketing axis for groups like Venom, Hellhammer, Mercyful Fate, King Diamond, and Danzig, amusing rock critics and horrifying PMRC-minded parents. Most of these bands - tho not all - have one thing in common; using morbid narrative ideals and grotesque imagery as their greatest focus and priority, often (IMO) at the expense of musical form.

Followers of these bands differ as to what constitutes “Black” Metal compared to subgenres dubbed “Death,” “Thrash,” “Hardcore,” “Grindcore” “Speed metal,” etc. For our purposes, the term black/dark metal applies to bands whose music is loud, fast, aggressive, and thematically focused on pain, death and/or occultism.

Norway and Sweden have been and remain hotbeds of black metal, due in part to political and sociological issues too complex and contradictory to go into here. In Norway, the scene, its fans and musicians are inexorably linked to – perhaps not surprisingly – church vandalism and arson.

The only Norwegian band most Americans have heard of is A-ha, but that country's black metal scene has long been home to Satanic cults, onstage animal sacrifices, and over 100 burned churches, some of them torched by Varg Vikernes of the band Burzum.

A local film company - ZU33 – recently made a movie based on the book Lords of Chaos, about Vikernes and his conviction in the early '90s for killing Øystein Aarseth of Mayhem. Directed and co-written by local avant-garde musician Hans Fjellestad (who also helmed the 2004 electronic-music documentary Moog), the film is a somewhat fictionalized account of the infamous "Black Circle" of Norwegian black metallers.

Some people think any band that makes “devil finger” gestures with their hand… …is somehow invoking Satan. While this may sometimes be the case, nowadays the devil fingers are thrown up by anyone and everyone who’s ever been inclined to bang their head. Devil fingers alone do not a black metal band make.

Just ask Ronnie James Dio, who gave a local-centric example in a 2001 interview with Rudezine: “We were doing one of the last ‘Inferno [To Hull And Back]’ shows at a college in San Diego [SDSU 8-3-98] and the audience was full of 20-year-old blonde surfers and short haired college kids, all giving me the [two-fingered devil] sign, which you know I’m the one who made it famous but, I mean, you can see that now at an N’ Synch show where they’re doing the same thing with their hands! It’s lost its meaning, so I hardly ever do it now.”

“The Devil diddled my mom, and I don’t care

Satan whizzed in her mouth but she swallowed and wouldn’t share.”

(“I Saw Mommy Ripped By Satan’s Claws” by Bloodbat)

North County record collector Ivan Torres founded and played guitar with one of the area’s earliest dark metal groups, Bloodbat, from 1987 through the band’s breakup in 1994. “Our bass player was a member of this Satanic cult called Rainbow, so a lot of times we’d have actual factual animal-sacrificing devil worshippers in the audience! Sometimes we’d do covers of King Diamond stuff but we were so sloppy nobody recognized the covers.”

“The most common thing people would say to us after our set was ‘I can’t tell your songs apart, they all sound the same.’ Instead of being insulted, we told ourselves ‘Cool, we have a consistent theme…our own sound!’ We didn’t want to be compared with anyone, not even ourselves.”

Torres recalls “We used to play the old downtown Soma building, and we’d project black and white horror movies on the walls around us while we played. Like, 8 millimeter loops of giant spiders and ‘Night Of The Living Dead’ stuff, way before Rob Zombie or Marilyn Manson came along. We weren’t playing for laughs…we were seriously into serial killers and building replicas of torture devices to use onstage.”

“I found a box of 16 millimeter ‘educational’ films at a county auction, and one of them was that bloody driver’s ed movie they used to show to scare the kids…with car accidents and ripped up bodies, brains on the pavement, that kind of thing. Girls in the audience would be screaming and covering their eyes and crying, but those were the same girls who were first in line trying to get backstage and get closer to sick f--ks like us.”

As to their name Bloodbat, "It started as a Kinko's error.,” according to Torres. “We originally called ourselves Bloodbath, but the first time we had show flyers printed up, they cut [the flyers] at the wrong size and cut off the H. We went ahead and got a refund from Kinko's, but we kept the name Bloodbat because we're goth, so blood and bats make sense."

Torres stopped following the local black metal scene around the time Club Xanth on 30th Street near North Park took over the goth club Empire. He says he attended a few editions of “The Catacombs,” Xanth’s monthly dark metal event, featuring area acts with morbidly descriptive names like Noctuary, Gutrot, Mortuus Terror, Abysmal Nocturne and Crematorium.

“But there were too many little vampire girls running around dressed like Morticia,” says Torres, “and I stopped going.” So did a lot of other people - Club Xanth closed down.

Torres says Blue Meannie Records in El Cajon is still his favorite pick as the best local source for related recordings, as well as opportunities for face-to-face time with acts like Cannibal Corpse and Dark Funeral, both of whom have done CD signings at the shop.

“Dark metal started underground, and the real sincere stuff is still on indie labels or self-released,” he says. “I’d rather go see any of the local metal bands than sellouts from the mainstream who try to imitate [dark metal]. Bands like Pantera and Anal C-nt are for rich suburban kids who desperately want to pretend they’re ‘alienated,’ when really they’re just looking for something guaranteed to p-ss their parents off. Some kids think all you have to do is gross out your audience, and you’re playing in the devil’s league.”

“Torn apart, upon a hook, limb from f--king bloody limb.

Carbonized and oxidized, pancreatic ducts ripped out.

Cleaned of all its organs, nephrons smother in their wake.

Bludgeoned with a steak knife, prepare a tasty meal.”

(“Bludgeoned, Beaten, and Barbequed” by Cattle Decapitation)

Local gorehounds Cattle Decapitation don’t barter in occult or Satanic imagery, but neither do they skimp on morbidity and blood ‘n’ guts.

According to their press bio, “Cattle Decapitation brings forth the ideas of vegetarianism with the utmost brutal approach in expression, both musically and imagery…[their] sound will bring elements of older death/grind, inbred with utterly impossible low vocals, while being stabbed by immense drumming.” The group is known for wearing masks made of beef jerky onstage, an apparent statement regarding the trivialization of animal remains for human consumption.

Cattle Decap was originally formed as a member-swapping side project of the Locust (drummer Dave Astor founded the Locust, and former Cattle Decapitation guitarist Gabe Serbian has played drums for the Locust). A good introduction to the band is the remastered "Human Jerky" CD, enhanced with bonus CD-Rom type content playable on any computer, such as live footage from the jerky mask shows, downloadable desktops and a link to the band's website.

Song titles on Human Jerky include “Colon Blo,” “Constipation Camp,” “Roadkill Removal Technician,” and “Parasitic Infestation (Extracted Pus Mistaken For Yogurt, And Gargled).”

The band really began to take off after being signed to Metal Blade Records, home of Satan-loving, makeup-wearing 2008 Grammy Award nominee King Diamond.

On signing with Metal Blade, guitarist Travis Ryan said "To us it is an honor to be chosen by a label that is responsible for such greats as Rigor Mortis, Cryptic Slaughter, Cannibal Corpse and King Diamond as a theater to present to the unfortunate public our brand of extreme music. Being on Metal Blade is going to allow us to reach a higher level of exposure and ability to play in places and in front of crowds that we wouldn't normally be able to, and that is something we need right now."

The group’s debut for Metal Blade, “To Serve Man,” was named after a classic episode of “The Twilight Zone” TV series, wherein nine-foot tall alien “Canamits” utilize an intergalactic cookbook to make lunchmeat out of human beings.

“Alive you are no more

Let them see what my anger's for

Temper's rise - No disguise

I've done my deed - I'll watch you bleed.”

(“My Dying God,” by Daemos)

The four piece band Daemos has been playing San Diego venues since the early-90s, as well as landing slots opening for Judas Priest at L.A.’s House of Blues and for Testament at the Whisky A Go-Go. Guest appearances on local radio stations like KIOZ and San Francisco’s KSJO have elevated interest in the band’s website, Daemos.com, which claims to receive over 275,000 hits yearly.

The group has performed various cover versions of songs by other, on tribute albums like “Megaded” (Megadeth songs – Daemos plays “Looking Down The Cross”) and “SuperCharger Hell” (they cover White Zombie’s “SuperCharger Heaven”). "We're really combining two different worlds," according to bassist Jason St. Aubin. "Our music appeals to the new school crowd as well as diehard metalers."

Guitarist and vocalist Eric Nunes says “Basically my take on music is that any music style can be good if the musicians like what they are doing. That's not to say that everyone can play well. But those that can and stick to their heart are great in my book. One thing that really p-sses me off is a band that is obviously writing and playing music to become rich and/or famous. It makes the rest of us look bad. Plus, if you try to play something that you don't like, it will never sound good.”

“I'm all for having influences,” says Nunes, “that's great, but you need to grow away from those influences and let your own unique style come through. The record labels will come around, once they see people digging your music. At that point you can either tell them to f--k off or give you the freedom you deserve.”

“Raise the battle-axe unto the skulls,

In the bliss of spilling blood on enemy soil.

Towards the synagogue, with thirst for Semite blood,

From a trail of churches burning.

Under the Haunting Moon, with sword in hand I ride

and I exalt the horns of battle towards the sky.

I slay the souls of the Jesuit creed, and bathe in their curdled blood.”

(“Raise The Horns Of Battle,” by Crimson Moon)

Crimson Moon is a recording unit only, comprised of two members and a drum machine. Bassist/vocalist/lyricist Scorpios and his bandmate Nocturnal Overlord (guitars, keyboards, drum programming) wear King Diamond/Kiss style Kabuki makeup – whiteface with black patches curling and dripping around their eyes and mouths to present a patina of WWF level ferocity.

They first surfaced in San Diego in 1994 with a self titled demo release, followed by 1995’s “Into the Nocturnal Forest” demo collection, earning both praise and notoriety for their straightforward and straight-faced obsession with all things occult.

Scorpios is a well-read and fascinating character who writes lengthy, learned manifestos on lucid dreaming, medieval theology and astral projection which he posts on websites (www.geocities.com/kthuluproductions) and emails to fans by request.

In songs like “The Stormbringer,” Scorpios seems to be reading incantation spells direct from some arcane text, summoning “creatures of darkness and hatred” and intoning “For I have consumed the blood that lives forever more, the blood of the Draconis, I drink the blood, the hate of Kingu rages on, the furious tempest unleashes black storms and the chaos crawls beyond the stars, to unleash fury amongst the blackened earth.”

The end passage of “Raise The Horns Of Battle,” after praising the destruction of churches and synagogues and the murder of Jews and Jesuits, includes conjurations to the unholy trinity of Lucifer, Beelzebuth and Astaroth, each ending with a cheeky “Amen.”

Crimson Moon’s 1996 debut CD “To Embrace The Vampyric Blood” (Abyss Productions) contained nine tracks and was recorded on a 4-track machine, as was a 1997 rehearsal performed with a third player on synthesizers, Khaija Ausar, which was later circulated as an “unofficial release” called “Under The Serpentine Spell.”

With no new material and no stage performances over the ensuing years, it seemed the group had disbanded, but Nocturnal Overlord says Crimson Moon has recorded an album archiving all the music they have done to date, including re-recordings of their demos plus three unreleased songs.

“My lyrics in Crimson Moon are occult based and not from a horror movie or fiction book,” according to Scorpios. “It is not an image. It is what we do and we will not change this because it is getting too trendy or too hated, etc. We do this for ourselves.”

He says he rarely reads fiction and especially hates “vampire novels,” but admits his lyrics are often inspired from arcane mythology. “I have studied the myths, magick and lore of not only Sumerian but Babylonian mythology as well. When I say study, I mean going further than just reading and practicing rituals from the Necronomicon."

He seems so sincere, it’s simply buzzkill to point out that the “Necronomicon” is a fictional invention of 20th century gothic writer HP Lovecraft, and texts purporting to have originated in this tome are of recent construct or from other sources entirely.

Discussing his views about Christianity versus Satanism on the San Diego Metal website (www.geocities.com/s_b_resistor/local.html), Scorpios said “They are actually very similar in many ways and they both need each other to exist! Satanism is not what I am into. I have studied much about it but it is basically a Judeo-Christian mutation of a religion. I prefer to go back much further in history to seek information.”

Scorpios says he’s familiar with – but doesn’t place much stock in - the Satanic Bible, written by Anton Szandor LaVey, the man who formed the Church of Satan in 1966. Scorpios claims not to ally himself with the philosophies set forth in this notorious book, which has sold more than 600,000 copies since it was first published by Avon Books in 1969.

“If you read Ragnar Redbeard’s book ‘Might is Right,’ which came out much before LaVey was around, it is interesting to see how many of the same ideas LaVey had! I don’t consider his form of Satanism to be…true Satanism. To me, true Satanism is a form of devil worship, not psychology. The Church of Satan is not much different than any other church, perhaps a bit more honest. They still feed off their followers’ money.”

Scorpios wraps up his commentary with an unctuous grab for the wallets of his own followers – “May chaos reign…and contact Nocturnal Overlord for merchandise (shirts, long sleeves, cds stickers, new promo tape, etc.).”

After all, ancient scrolls, eyes of newt and faux Necronomicons don’t come cheap!

According to Scorpios, “I have another ritual/acoustic project totally devoted to the Dieties of Sumeria/Babylonia called ‘Akrabu.’”

Crimson Moon never performed live until 2006. Core members Scorpios (bass, vocals, lyrics) and Nocturnal Overlord (guitars, keyboards, drum programming) have split and are now battling over the bandname, especially after Overlord announced an impending new CM album (sans Scorpios), with rehearsals already posted online.

“[This] material was recorded between 1997-2000 solely by Overlord on a portable four-track and with an old drum machine,” reads a post on Overlord’s MySpace page.

“Overlord was kicked out [of Crimson Moon] in September of 2006,” according to Scorpios. “This [new CM album] is another one of Overlord's desperate attempts to cause confusion…just because Overlord played in Crimson Moon in the past and decided to steal the logo, name, artwork and concepts that are beyond his limits of understanding, bought out a bunch of domain names and made a MySpace page, doesn't change the fact that he was and will forever remain, kicked out of the band.”

Scorpios has grouped with three others (including a synthesizer player from previous CM recordings) for his own version of CM, with its own new album in progress. “Overlord was not even a member of Crimson Moon when it started in 1994 and released the debut self-titled demo,” he says.

Replies Overlord, “In actuality, Scorpios was released from Crimson Moon in 2006, and has gone around making a fuss, and started childish internet drama ever since. He has even gone as far as to steal artwork, image files, HTML coding, avatars, sound files…[it’s] simply pathetic, and there is no need to explain why he was kicked out. I won’t waste any more time on this.”

Dueling MySpace pages are titled “crimsonmoon666” (Nocturnal Overlord) and “crimsonmoonofficial” (Scorpios).

(Oni Press 2007)

SATAN CAME TO US: DEEP INSIDE THE DEVIL

“Satan came to us and told us that San Diego needs to experience a Black Metal revolution,” according to the MySpace page for Ruines ov Abaddon, based in La Mesa. This for me raised several questions, to which the band replied in an unsigned message.

Approximately when did Satan arrive? “3 a.m. on February 3rd.”

Was he basically human, or did he have one of those goat bodies or stag heads or something? “Perhaps it was his beady eyes, frowning like he’s looking into the glare of the sun, or his overly large ears, [but] his Texan accent and inability to enunciate reminded us of good old George W. Bush.”

Can you quote what he told you as closely as possible? “He’s actually more conversational than he seems. You would think him being the Lord of the Underworld, he would have more important matters to take care of…He’s quite the inspiration, you should hear him talk about everything he’s been through.”

Did Satan explain WHY San Diego needs a Black Metal revolution? “Because the music industry has sold out and is producing repetitive, untalented noise they’re labeling as music. Satan seemed quite upset as he explained this.”

Did you and Satan discuss anything else? “He actually mentioned that if, in the upcoming election, another Republican like, say, John McCain became President, he was going to have to burn down the entire United States.”

What else can you tell us about Satan? “He’s good with his anger management.”

Interestingly, a promoter in Mexico tried not too long ago to book a show COMBINING black metal bands with Christian groups!

It was billed as "Hell and Heaven United," with Satan-loving Slayer co-headlining with Christian rockers Stryper. However, this Monterrey Metal Fest event in Nuevo León, Mexico, scheduled for September 23rd ’06, was derailed "due to Slayer not wanting to share the stage with Stryper," according to an e-mail from show promoters.

"This came as a shock to us after eight months of long and very complicated negotiations with Slayer's booking agent,” said promoters. Even before Slayer's cancellation was announced, the band's website had indicated that they'd be appearing in Mexico City on the same day as the Monterrey festival. A band press release cited "personal reasons" for the pullout.

"I was literally booking our plane and hotel reservations when they sent word not to confirm anything yet," says Veronica Freeman, singer for local band Benedictum.

Slayer's album Christ Illusion, was released 6-6-06; on their website that day, the band urged fans to "desecrate a few churches." The entreaty was removed a day later, after several churches reported being defaced by depictions of the band's logo.

Since not all black metal bands have Satanism in common, nor is grotesque imagery mandatory to qualify, what DO most all black and dark metal bands have in common?

All the band logos look like they were designed by the same guy!!!!!!!!

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HISTORY OF DEATH METAL - COMIC STRIP BY JAS & SCOTT PENTZER

YOUTUBE GEM: Here's "Humanure: The Art Show," inspired by the veggies-no-meat music of our own Cattle Decapitation:

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GOTHS FOR JESUS: PASTOR DAVE’S CHRISTIAN GOTHS

"The Lord said...'Stretch your hand toward the sky so that darkness will spread...darkness that can be felt.'" Exodus 10:21

Old school “goth” can be traced back to the third and fourth centuries, when a Germanic tribe known as the Visigoths waged war against the Roman empire throughout Eastern and Southern Europe. They didn’t wear eyeliner but they did collect skulls and gaudy silver jewelry. Later, an architectural style called “gothic” became popular, favoring wrought iron trim, gargoyle draped columns, cathedral spires and belfries suitable for bats.

As far as ideology and fashion goes, 19th century poet Lord Byron and Frankenstein author Mary Shelley were most certainly goth, with their dark clothes, powdered white faces, poofy laced sleeves, depressive outlooks and morbid imaginations. Musically, goth culture coalesced with the minor-chord melancholy of 80s bands like Joy Division, The Cure, Fields of the Nephilim, Sisters Of Mercy and Siouxsie And The Banshees.

Back then, the darkly dressed in San Diego congregated at now defunct venues such as the Skeleton Club, the original downtown Soma and clubs like Stratus and SubNation. In the late 90s, the place to be pale was Crocodile Rock, which regularly held goth-themed events like Soil, Savage Garden and Seventh Chamber. Trenchcoats and jewelry in the form of a religious cross were common, but one older gentleman haunting the scene wore both in a somewhat more official capacity - Christian Pastor Dave Hart, who was there not to dance but to find what he calls “disenfranchised youth” in need of counsel and guidance.

“I became one of those ‘born-agains’ back in 1970, during the Jesus People days” says Hart, or Pastor Dave, as he likes to be referred. “I had a hard time settling on a church or denomination, because like most hippies in those days, I was distrustful of organizations and institutions and I suppose I retain some of that attitude to this day.”

He says he originally had no intention of going to seminary school, considering organized religion “just another institution that ultimately would crush my faith. But eventually I became convinced that I was ‘called’ to be a minister of some kind, and found myself at Talbot - the graduate seminary connected to BIOLA College in Orange Country. After I graduated [with a Master's Degree in Christian Education], I tried my hand at youth work, but found myself unable to steer successfully through the politics of the church system, and kept getting fired.”

After a stint in the Navy, as a drug and alcohol counselor, he noticed young people increasingly warming up to the word of God, at least when those words were dressed in rock and roll clothes. This led to him promoting local mid-eighties concerts by Christian heavy metal bands, such as Stryper and others.

He recalls one show at the Fox Theater featuring Christian punk rockers Undercover. “The Dead Kennedys had been in that theater two weeks before and the fans had torn the place apart. The vice squad was on the alert for any punk bands and shut us down while they [the band] were trying to load in - just on general principle."

"They ‘discovered’ that we were missing a permit. This was at 4:45 pm and the permit office shut down at 5pm so there was no time to go get the permit - convenient, huh?” He says he’d secured all the same approvals utilized at previous events with no problems. “Refunding the money back to twelve different Christian bookstores all over the county was a real headache.”

In the course of promoting shows, Pastor Dave says many of the young people he met yearned for spiritual guidance, while disdaining most forms of organized religion. “These kids already tend to view the traditional church with disgust and distrust. Feeling they have been misjudged, misunderstood, and/or manipulated by the church, they have rejected Christianity as hypocritical, cruel and irrelevant.”

This inspired him to launch a rock and roll driven youth ministry. “I had a meeting with a young Christian metal-head named Steve Gray, who was DJing a metal show on Palomar College radio. Soon we had a regular group meeting in my apartment on Monday nights, which we called The Rock and Roll Refuge. We did this for about two years with about 30-35 kids crammed into my tiny living room.”

When Hart heard about a similarly named group operating in Redondo Beach near L.A., he sensed a perfect match for his own San Diego ministry. Founded in the mid-80s, Pastor Bob Beeman’s “Sanctuary: The Rock And Roll Refuge” attracted hundreds of people to its Sunday services, as well as promoting events featuring the big name Christian rockers of the day – Barren Cross, Deliverance, Precious Death and others.

“Both ministries were birthed out of our relationship to Stryper," he says. "The only difference was that what I had been doing for three months, he'd been doing for two or three years…I was eventually ordained through Pastor's Bob's Sanctuary, and I became the infamous Pastor Dave.”

From the start, he was particularly interested in goth kids. He saw in them a fondness for the iconography and rituals endemic to church tradition (crosses, candles, incantations, etc.), as well as great intellectual capacity, emotional depth and spiritual yearning. “[Goths] are into art, poetry, and music. They are passive, introspective, and can be dramatically emotional. They can also be too self-absorbed, brood to a fault, and they internalize everything, even things that have nothing to do with them! As a group and as a rule, goths take their stress and pain out on themselves, not on others - cutters, piercers, slicers, suicide addicts - they will beat themselves up in their guilt and their sorrow to prove how real their pain is.”

Instead of trying to bring teens into church, Pastor Dave took his pulpit to wherever goths gathered - the Empire Club (30th Street North Park, later Club Xanth), which hosted mostly 18+ and all-age events, the Sin-Klub (inside Club Elements on University Avenue), Club Luminal (Tuesday nights at Hamburger Mary's) and Therapy, then held the first Friday of every month at Club Xanth (North Park) and every other Friday at The Flame in Hillcrest. “I try to go wherever there might be interesting sub-culture experiences…last summer I went to Comic-Con and the Tattoo Convention. I have been to a Wiccan Handfasting and occasionally get into a confrontation with a Satanist or two.”

Today’s most notable goth gatherings take place on Wednesdays at Kadan (Darkwave Garden) and Sundays at Club Montage on Hancock Street (Underworld).

A local volunteer organization called Goth Help Us regularly organizes beach clean-ups and other civic-minded endeavors.

Those who seek Pastor Dave’s advice aren’t told that aligning themselves with the goth lifestyle is a mistake, but they are counseled on its negative aspects.

"These kids romanticize death," he says. "They romanticize the blade, the blood that trickles down.” He says he was once invited by a fifteen-year old goth girl to attend a ceremony where her friends cut themselves and drank each other’s blood from a cup, believing the ritual to be a rite of passage into vampirism.

Rather than shrink away in horror or scream “Blasphemy,” the pastor clinically instructed them on health risks such as A.I.D.S. and Hepatitis. He says the girl ended up dedicating herself to Christianity.

The Sanctuary website is promoted as "a fellowship of Christian misfits.” Though delivered in an unusual manner, in unorthodox places, the message preached by Pastor Dave is textbook – or “Good Book” - Christianity. He urges young people not to use drugs, to avoid promiscuity, not to cut themselves and to steer clear of other self-destructive habits. He reminds them that Jesus himself was a social outcast and political iconoclast whose best friends didn’t understand him.

He points out that vampirism is a poor man’s translation of the salvation and personal power given to humanity via the blood of Jesus, and that Christ’s crucifixion was the most intense body piercing session in recorded history. These commonalities make it possible, he says, to embrace both goth and Christianity, while remaining true to the ideals of both.

Liquid Grey is a local DJ I contacted some time ago, when we were both members of the online mailing list and discussion group sdgoth.org. Replyin