Latest / San Joaquin Sound / Chris Goodsell: The Adventures of Purdy Spackle and Big Jed

Transcript

Chris Goodsell: The Adventures of Purdy Spackle and Big Jed · San Joaquin Sound

• 0:02
  This is a content warning. This episode of the
• 0:05
  San Joaquin sound contains language allusions
• 0:08
  to abuse and descriptions of violence and sex.
• 0:12
  It also talks about a few songs that are sexist
• 0:16
  and homophobic. Listener discretion is advised.
• 0:50
  This is the San Joaquin Sound Podcast. I'm your
• 0:53
  host, A .J. Rodriguez. Today I'm here with bassist
• 0:57
  and guitarist Chris Goodsell, a .k .a. Purdy
• 1:00
  Spackle. He was in bands like Big Jed and the
• 1:04
  Flatbeds, Cradle of Thorns, Brian Jones Was Murdered,
• 1:08
  and The Wichitas. He's played shows all over
• 1:11
  Bakersfield, toured the United States, opened
• 1:15
  for Willie Nelson, and even played Gilman Street.
• 1:18
  But before we get into that, what was growing
• 1:21
  up in Bakersfield like for you? Growing up in
• 1:23
  Bakersfield? I'm a first generation Bakersfieldian.
• 1:28
  My father was from Long Beach and my mother was
• 1:31
  from Alabama. Fond of this place. I don't like
• 1:36
  the bad reputation. Well, I like the bad reputation
• 1:39
  because it keeps a lot of assholes from L .A.
• 1:43
  out. So they don't come and... buy up all the
• 1:46
  houses and raise the rents and all that. So I
• 1:50
  like our bad reputation. It's hot, it's boring,
• 1:53
  but the people here are very cool. There's a
• 1:57
  lot of dumb shits, but at least 10 % of the population
• 2:00
  here are very cool and you have to hunt them
• 2:03
  out. And when you do find these people, you appreciate
• 2:06
  them and it makes it worth it to live here. So
• 2:11
  I was researching for this episode and I found
• 2:13
  some articles. about someone named Chris Goodsell
• 2:16
  winning the annual doll competition awards. Is
• 2:20
  that you? Oh, my God. Did you win a bunch of
• 2:23
  awards? How the hell did you find that? That
• 2:28
  is unbelievable. How did you find that? It was
• 2:31
  in the newspaper. This is like Nardwar. It was
• 2:33
  in the newspaper. It was like big news. Holy
• 2:37
  shit. You were like Nardwar. It made the newspaper.
• 2:39
  Well, I've been told that. I cannot believe that.
• 2:43
  Oh, my God. So it was you. Yes, that was me.
• 2:48
  But all credit goes to my mother. She was a...
• 2:54
  She collected dolls. And there used to be a doll
• 3:00
  fair in Bakersfield in the 70s at the Civic Auditorium.
• 3:05
  And she would enter, but you could only enter
• 3:07
  once. So she would enter under my brother's name,
• 3:11
  my sister's name, and my name. She was just in
• 3:13
  her doll displays because she collected antique
• 3:15
  dolls and stuff. So even though the award says
• 3:21
  Chris Goodsell won it, it was actually my mother.
• 3:23
  She just put it under my name because it was
• 3:25
  like, like I said, she collected antique dolls
• 3:29
  from the 1800s and she displayed them every year
• 3:32
  at this doll fair. Wow. Okay. So that leads to
• 3:38
  the question, what music did your parents listen
• 3:40
  to? Okay. My parents. My father was a judge,
• 3:43
  and my mother was a drill sergeant in the Marines.
• 3:47
  Wow. Now, you would think that I would have some
• 3:50
  kind of strict upbringing where I was forced
• 3:55
  to mow the lawn at 6 a .m. and all that. But
• 4:01
  my parents were very hip and very cool. There
• 4:03
  was always music in the house. They were very
• 4:05
  much into pop culture. We always had music they
• 4:08
  always loved. whatever was cool. We grew up listening
• 4:12
  to the Beatles and Bob Dylan and whatever was
• 4:14
  on the radio. My parents were very cool. Nice.
• 4:17
  My, I should mention that my upbringing was my
• 4:22
  parents style was let them figure it out on their
• 4:27
  own. So I was pretty much unsupervised my whole
• 4:30
  youth, which was not a good thing because I needed
• 4:33
  supervision. I needed guidance, but They just
• 4:37
  kind of let me run wild. So I was pretty much
• 4:40
  feral growing up. So I have another question
• 4:45
  about your family. So your brother, Greg. Yes.
• 4:48
  He loved punk music, and he even promoted the
• 4:51
  very first punk show in Bakersfield at BC with
• 4:54
  Teen Suicide with the lead singer Scott Sturdivant,
• 4:58
  a .k .a. Slim the Drifter. Yes. Did he have a
• 5:01
  big influence on your music taste? Yes. My brother,
• 5:05
  some say he was the first punk in town. But,
• 5:09
  you know, how can you prove that? I'm sure there
• 5:11
  might have been other people that claim that.
• 5:15
  But my brother was like a disco guy in the 70s
• 5:21
  like everyone was with the silk shirts and all
• 5:23
  that kind of stuff. Yeah. and listening to disco.
• 5:26
  But every Saturday night, we would listen to
• 5:28
  Dr. Demento. Have you ever heard of Dr. Demento?
• 5:30
  Yeah, he got Weird Al famous, didn't he? Yes,
• 5:32
  same guy. Well, Dr. Demento, we listened to it
• 5:35
  every Saturday night. He would play just novelty
• 5:39
  records and weird stuff from all over. And he'd
• 5:42
  occasionally play the punk record because it
• 5:44
  was a novelty at the time. So my brother heard
• 5:47
  Devo for the first time. It was probably 1977.
• 5:51
  on Dr. Demento and that just blew his mind the
• 5:54
  next day he cut all his hair off he threw all
• 5:57
  his disco shirts away and just went head -on
• 6:00
  into punk we our bedrooms were right next to
• 6:04
  each other and we had super thin walls and my
• 6:06
  brother would just play the same records over
• 6:09
  and over a thousand times in a row and I could
• 6:12
  not help but listen to this music so he would
• 6:15
  play sax pistols and whatever plasmatics and
• 6:20
  black flag constantly over and over and over.
• 6:25
  And it was just, I would bang on the walls. Please
• 6:27
  stop playing that shit. Cause I was very, I was
• 6:30
  very resistant to punk cause I was into my thing.
• 6:35
  You know, it did not speak to me at the time.
• 6:38
  Uh, so I just thought it was weirdo shit. I didn't
• 6:42
  want any part of it, but after a while it kind
• 6:45
  of creeps into your brain. to where you start
• 6:50
  singing the songs. Like, damn, that's a catchy
• 6:52
  song. It wasn't until I got into high school
• 6:57
  to where I started to really identify with punk
• 7:04
  rock. I completely give credit to my brother.
• 7:10
  But it wasn't until high school. I was very...
• 7:15
  Okay. sorry, this is going to be long winded,
• 7:18
  but I was five foot tall all through high school.
• 7:23
  I had long, pretty blonde hair. I looked just
• 7:26
  like a girl. I was very androgynous looking.
• 7:28
  I was a bully magnet. Um, I was very shy and
• 7:34
  I was very eager to please. And so I was a bully
• 7:39
  magnet. Like kids didn't like me. They thought
• 7:41
  I was weird. And so Going to South High in the
• 7:47
  70s and 80s, I was an absolute loner. I did not
• 7:52
  have one single friend. And so it was this time
• 7:58
  when I started identifying with punk rock more.
• 8:02
  I identified with the anger and just the alienation,
• 8:08
  and it was really starting to speak to me. to
• 8:12
  where i was like okay i'm gonna make a commitment
• 8:15
  i am going to cut my hippie hair off i'm gonna
• 8:19
  start dressing like a punk i'm already an outcast
• 8:23
  so i mean what do i got to lose what am i gonna
• 8:26
  do get beat up more than i'm already getting
• 8:29
  beat up i mean it just no longer mattered so
• 8:33
  i just dove headfirst into punk rock and here
• 8:38
  we are 50 years later and i'm still consider
• 8:41
  myself a punk and i always will until i die it's
• 8:45
  it's it's part of me now i will always be punk
• 8:50
  so i mean i'm not gonna have a mohawk i wish
• 8:54
  i could grow a mohawk i can't but it's always
• 8:57
  going to be part of my personality it's always
• 8:59
  going to be my dna awesome So is it true you
• 9:04
  got kicked out of South High for acting like
• 9:07
  Charles Manson? Because you said that. But it
• 9:12
  never, in the article, it didn't explain what
• 9:15
  that meant. So what does that mean? Okay. Okay.
• 9:23
  Around my junior year, other punk rockers started
• 9:27
  showing up. There were more new wave. I was like
• 9:31
  the real deal hardcore. But these kids, these
• 9:35
  new wave kids, started dipping their little toe
• 9:39
  into the punk rock pool. And I think they recognized
• 9:46
  me as, I don't know, this is going to make it
• 9:49
  sound like I'm trying to make myself sound cool.
• 9:52
  I'm not cool. I think they just, I started to
• 9:56
  get a group of friends that were younger than
• 10:00
  me. I was older. They were all younger than me.
• 10:04
  They recognized my punkness, and they would come
• 10:08
  over to my house because I lived right by the
• 10:10
  Valley Plaza, and my house became a meeting place.
• 10:13
  I lived in a giant two -story house. Like I said,
• 10:17
  I was completely unsupervised, so I just had
• 10:19
  people coming in day and night, all hours of
• 10:22
  the day, and my house became the punk rock hangout.
• 10:27
  Around my senior year, I just stopped going to
• 10:30
  class. I would just show up, ditch all day, but
• 10:33
  hang out on campus. Administration wanted to
• 10:36
  get rid of me. I was known as a bad person, a
• 10:44
  bad influence. I mean, I didn't fight. I didn't
• 10:46
  do drugs. I didn't do anything like that. But
• 10:49
  they just knew that I was bad news. Yeah, I was
• 10:52
  accused of having a Manson -like cult. that's
• 10:58
  funny not everyone can say that yeah how did
• 11:02
  you get the name purdy spackle and is it related
• 11:06
  to the national lampoon magazine at all you are
• 11:10
  fucking awesome no one would know that no one
• 11:15
  would know that okay purdy spackle is a punk
• 11:19
  name uh some people say Tell me you can't give
• 11:23
  yourself. Oh my God. Do you have the picture?
• 11:25
  Yeah. That's that. That's the page from the national
• 11:28
  lamp. Yes. Pretty Lee psycho spackle. Yes. Yeah.
• 11:32
  People say you can't give yourself your own nickname.
• 11:35
  I did not give myself my own nickname. You have
• 11:40
  to, if you're in a band, you have to have a fake
• 11:42
  name. Everybody in black flag has a fake name
• 11:45
  except for Greg Ginn. And Greg Ginn was constantly
• 11:48
  getting harassed by. the police and the FBI because
• 11:52
  he used his real name. Henry Rollins' name is
• 11:55
  Henry Garfield. Chuck Dukowski's name is Gary
• 11:58
  McDaniel. Rovo's name is Roberto something or
• 12:01
  other. You have to have a fake name because one
• 12:04
  day you may do an interview for a magazine and
• 12:09
  say you want to kill the president. You should
• 12:12
  not use your real name because that could come
• 12:14
  and bite you in the ass. So anyway, in junior
• 12:17
  high, there was a couple of girls that would
• 12:20
  call me Purdy because I had long eyelashes and
• 12:23
  I had long hair and I look like a girl and they'd
• 12:25
  say, oh my God, your eyelashes are so Purdy.
• 12:27
  The Purdy Spackle comes from that National Lampoon
• 12:32
  Purdy Lee Psycho Spackle. National Lampoon in
• 12:36
  the 70s did a fake parody yearbook and the psycho
• 12:41
  of the school was named Purdy Spackle. And yes,
• 12:47
  that's... damn nerd war this is hilarious i love
• 12:55
  it so when do you start playing music is this
• 13:00
  when you're in junior high or high school okay
• 13:02
  i have been performing and playing music since
• 13:05
  fourth grade i played violin i prefer i perform
• 13:10
  concerts since 70, whatever age I was in fourth
• 13:14
  grade, 76, 77. So I have been performing music.
• 13:19
  That's not to say that I'm good at it. I am not
• 13:21
  good at it, but I do not have stage fright because
• 13:24
  I have been performing music on stage since I
• 13:28
  was nine years old. So I played violin and orchestra.
• 13:33
  I was first chair, first violin. Again, I'm not
• 13:37
  saying I'm good. I'm just saying I was first
• 13:39
  chair, first violin. And then later when I was
• 13:44
  a teenager and we were all talking about forming
• 13:47
  bands, I always pictured myself as a singer,
• 13:51
  but I was too shy to sing. And so somebody had
• 13:54
  a bass and I picked it up and I was like, oh,
• 13:57
  I know how to play string instruments because
• 13:59
  I played violin forever. So that's how I learned
• 14:02
  how to play bass. My first official punk band
• 14:05
  was a band called Red Asphalt. And this was probably
• 14:08
  1979. And by band, I'm not saying we went and
• 14:12
  booked shows and made records. I'm saying we
• 14:15
  played in a garage and we had an audience of
• 14:18
  maybe five people. And that was me on bass, Chantel
• 14:23
  Waldo on drums. Do you know Chantel Waldo? I
• 14:26
  don't. Okay. And a... Absolute psychopath that
• 14:31
  I will call Rod because that's his real name.
• 14:34
  I won't give you his last name because I think
• 14:36
  he is in jail for murder. And he was an absolute
• 14:39
  psychopath. He was the first person I ever knew
• 14:42
  to shave his head for punk rock. And this was
• 14:46
  in the 70s. He played guitar. He played a Vox
• 14:49
  Phantom guitar through a PVM. And one night we
• 14:53
  had an argument and he choked me until I passed
• 14:56
  out. Damn. Yes. He was an absolute psychopath,
• 14:59
  but he gets credit for being one of the first
• 15:04
  guys I knew to shave his head for punk rock,
• 15:07
  if that counts for anything. Yeah, first band
• 15:12
  was Red Asphalt. Second band was a band called
• 15:16
  Sharon Tate's Baby, and we actually played shows.
• 15:19
  We played one very legendary show, and that was
• 15:22
  with Larry Gregg singing, me on guitar. a girl
• 15:27
  named Kathy Sullivan on bass and Chantal Waldo
• 15:29
  on drums. And then after that, I played in a
• 15:31
  bunch of other crappy bands, uh, that didn't
• 15:34
  really do anything. So what was the first punk
• 15:36
  show you ever saw? Okay. My brother took me to
• 15:39
  go see the lizards play at a place called the
• 15:42
  falafel, which was downtown on 19th. I don't
• 15:45
  remember. It was a restaurant. I was the only.
• 15:48
  This was 1980. This was my brother's friends.
• 15:51
  He was kind of like their pseudo manager. He
• 15:54
  was the one that booked them shows and got, Oh,
• 15:57
  I should mention that my brother was a DJ at
• 15:59
  KBCC where he had a radio show and he played
• 16:03
  punk rock. Nice. Yeah. And, and I still have
• 16:06
  a lot of tapes and one of these days I'm going
• 16:08
  to put them on YouTube. He used to book shows
• 16:12
  for them. So he booked him a show at this, uh,
• 16:15
  middle eastern restaurant downtown called the
• 16:17
  falafel and i watched them i was the youngest
• 16:20
  person there i was probably 14 i still have their
• 16:23
  record the lizards record it goes for like a
• 16:26
  thousand dollars now on ebay it's a great great
• 16:29
  great record something uh to be proud of um it
• 16:33
  wasn't life -changing it was kind of a boring
• 16:35
  show but i got to meet the original First wave
• 16:39
  Baker sealed punk rockers. And that was very
• 16:41
  cool. I have tons of respect for them. They were
• 16:44
  all very cool. And yeah, that was my first punk
• 16:47
  show. That's awesome. So the falafel restaurant
• 16:50
  was on 1623 19th street. And if you're looking
• 16:57
  up, if you're listening and you want to hear
• 16:59
  the lizards, look on YouTube. It's lizards with
• 17:02
  E R D. Yes. They're awesome. Yeah. Great, great
• 17:06
  band. And these idiots, we tried to reissue their
• 17:12
  single and they threw all their master tapes
• 17:17
  away back in the 80s along with a box full of
• 17:21
  their singles that now go for $1 ,000 each. They
• 17:23
  threw them all away because they didn't care.
• 17:25
  Another thing they did that really annoyed me
• 17:27
  is none of those fuckers took pictures. Nobody
• 17:30
  thought to bring a camera and just document anything,
• 17:34
  which really pisses me off. The biggest advice
• 17:37
  that I see continue from episode to episode is
• 17:40
  a lot of people say take pictures because we
• 17:44
  didn't take pictures. Yes. I had a ton of pictures,
• 17:46
  but over the years they've been stolen or misplaced
• 17:50
  or I really regret not having all the pictures
• 17:54
  I once had. Man, I would give anything to have
• 17:57
  my pictures back. Let's talk about Rollertown.
• 18:00
  Oh, okay. Okay, that was a venue, right? Yes.
• 18:04
  Roller skating was super huge in the 70s. I went
• 18:07
  every single weekend. I either went to Skateland
• 18:09
  or I went to Rollertown. Every weekend. Where
• 18:12
  was Rollertown at? Rollertown was right by the
• 18:17
  Valley Plaza. I think it's now Moore Furniture.
• 18:21
  You know where the movie theater is? Yeah. It
• 18:24
  was right in that area. All right. you'd go and
• 18:28
  they'd blast disco music and they'd have the
• 18:31
  disco lights and you'd go out there and skate
• 18:33
  around in a circle for an hour. Anyway, I did
• 18:35
  it every single weekend. By 1984, was that the
• 18:42
  year? Yeah, 1984. 1984, nobody's roller skating
• 18:46
  anymore, so all those places are in ruins. So
• 18:50
  they booked... local bands at this they had a
• 18:52
  battle of the bands there and i went and the
• 18:54
  place was so sad it had just fallen on hard times
• 18:58
  because roller skating was no longer cool and
• 19:03
  so they were desperate to make some money and
• 19:06
  it was sad to see this place completely run down
• 19:08
  this place i spent every single weekend at and
• 19:12
  that's where there was about all bands and there
• 19:14
  was uh some local bands i believe it was silent
• 19:21
  holocaust deicide not the death metal band deicide
• 19:25
  obviously i think it's big jet and primer gray
• 19:29
  were the two bands and then they had a few bands
• 19:32
  on the bottom that i'm not sure yeah the bands
• 19:35
  on the bottom here's my memories of them uh silent
• 19:39
  holocaust was just a thrown together band that
• 19:43
  had never played before and they just had like
• 19:45
  five songs and they made zero impression Deicide
• 19:50
  was some West High kids band. And what I remember
• 19:56
  most about them is their drummer had a broken
• 19:59
  arm. So instead of just trying to find somebody
• 20:03
  else to play drums, they rigged up his drum set
• 20:05
  to where he played the snare with one foot and
• 20:08
  the bass drum with the other foot. Nice. Yeah.
• 20:10
  And it sounded horrible. But, you know, you got
• 20:14
  to hand it to them to not replacing their drummer.
• 20:17
  Primer Gray were there. and then there was Big
• 20:22
  Jed, who I'd never heard of. And the evening
• 20:26
  was wrapping up. My ride was leaving, and Big
• 20:30
  Jed went on, and I was like, well, let me check
• 20:34
  out this band. Never heard them. I remember checking
• 20:36
  them out, and they were unlike anything I'd ever
• 20:39
  seen, either L .A. or Bakersfield or anywhere.
• 20:44
  They kind of sounded like the Minutemen. but
• 20:47
  not the Minutemen. Like their songs were very
• 20:50
  weird and like jazzy, kind of funky, but punk.
• 20:55
  And I remember the singer had a lime green homemade
• 20:59
  guitar and he was wearing like a button up shirt
• 21:05
  with a string tie. And I guess it was like, what
• 21:11
  five years later they'd call cow punk, but. At
• 21:15
  the time, nobody was doing this. These guys look
• 21:18
  like they were on their own trip. And I was fascinated
• 21:22
  by that because we were in Bakersfield. This
• 21:25
  wasn't an LA band. I would expect an LA band
• 21:27
  to be all crazy and weird and innovative. But
• 21:29
  for a local band to be as weird as they were,
• 21:32
  I was like, whoa, that's really interesting.
• 21:35
  I thought they were very cool. They made an impression
• 21:37
  on me. And then later, I learned more about the
• 21:40
  singer, Big Jed, quote, his name was Todd. He
• 21:44
  was a local guy that everyone respected as a
• 21:47
  musician because apparently he could play anything.
• 21:49
  He was like super crazy talented. Legend had
• 21:54
  it that he had his own recording studio at his
• 21:57
  house that was like, not just like a little shitty
• 22:01
  four track. He like had a 30 track studio, like
• 22:04
  professional, like heavy duty stuff. I found
• 22:07
  out later once I got to know him that he got
• 22:10
  in a horrible motorcycle accident. Part of his
• 22:13
  settlement, he got $30 ,000. And for 1980s money,
• 22:17
  $30 ,000 would have bought you a house. He took
• 22:20
  the $30 ,000 and spent it all on recording equipment.
• 22:23
  And he learned how to use it. And this shit was
• 22:26
  not like, oh, you just plug in your laptop and
• 22:30
  do this, blah, blah, blah. No, you had to manually
• 22:32
  do every single thing. And he learned how to
• 22:35
  record bands. And he recorded bands. And he was
• 22:37
  really, really, really good at it. He was crazy
• 22:40
  talented. I didn't, I got to know him years,
• 22:44
  as the years went on, he was older than me. Everyone
• 22:48
  was kind of intimidated by him because he was,
• 22:51
  he was very funny, but he was very sarcastic.
• 22:56
  Like borderline kind of mean. And now that I'm
• 23:03
  an old man, I realize that's shyness coming off
• 23:09
  as arrogance. He wasn't really, it was like a
• 23:13
  defense. Like, oh, if I'm going to be sarcastic
• 23:16
  and mean first, then they're not going to hurt
• 23:19
  my feelings by doing it to me. I realize that
• 23:22
  now because we once, years later, we became best
• 23:25
  friends. He was bisexual and he was very open
• 23:30
  about it. If you knew him, you knew. He, it was
• 23:33
  not a secret. Yeah, he was not in the closet.
• 23:36
  He was a very, let's say he was a very sexual
• 23:40
  person. I heard his music and all the songs he
• 23:45
  wrote were like super catchy and super good.
• 23:49
  I was never a big fan of his lyrics because his
• 23:51
  lyrics were always like super gross and like
• 23:55
  sexist. And like, I always told him I never liked
• 23:58
  his lyrics, but he was doing it as a character.
• 24:02
  Big Jed was a character. Big Jed was a 50 year
• 24:06
  old oil field, redneck worker dude who was an
• 24:11
  alcoholic and abusive towards women. It was a
• 24:14
  character. So the songs of Big Jed were written
• 24:17
  in character. I didn't realize this until years
• 24:19
  later because he was like 24 and he was writing
• 24:24
  songs about being divorced and having 10 kids
• 24:29
  and he didn't have kids. His lyrics were very
• 24:33
  off -putting, but his music was so good. And
• 24:38
  it's a shame that more people don't know about
• 24:43
  it. The next year, Burning Image and Big Jed
• 24:46
  played a show at the American Legion Hall. The
• 24:50
  Californian reviewed it. Steve Hall from the
• 24:53
  Californian reviewed it and said that the kids
• 24:58
  really enjoyed Burning Image's concert. And they
• 25:02
  were slam dancing and stuff like this. And they
• 25:05
  said when Big Jed came on that the crowd was
• 25:08
  confused and they couldn't slam dance to their
• 25:11
  uneven disco derived sound. That's awesome. And
• 25:15
  I thought that was funny because of all the genres
• 25:18
  that they're combining, I never thought disco.
• 25:22
  So I thought that was weird. That's awesome.
• 25:25
  And then Big Jed actually wrote a response letter
• 25:28
  to him. Steve Hall printed it. And it just said
• 25:32
  this. Get the heck out of town, you knucklehead.
• 25:37
  So I like that. That was funny. God. I don't
• 25:43
  think about that guy every day. I think about
• 25:45
  him every couple of hours. Originally, the band
• 25:51
  was called Big Jet in the Flatbeds. And what
• 25:54
  was the lineup? Okay, it was not me. I was not
• 25:57
  a flatbed. The lineup was revolving. There were
• 26:03
  several different people in it. At one time,
• 26:07
  Steve Crooks played guitar. He was also the guitarist
• 26:10
  of Primer Gray. He was a member. Paul Hall played
• 26:14
  bass. And they had several drummers, but the
• 26:21
  best drummer they had was Paul Birch, who was
• 26:24
  also a member of... Burning Image. He's a awesome
• 26:28
  drummer and an awesome guy. He was their best
• 26:31
  drummer. But I'm not discounting who came before
• 26:34
  him because I honestly don't know. But that was
• 26:39
  the flatbeds. I can say this all now because
• 26:43
  I know he wouldn't care and he's dead. And he
• 26:47
  had some problems. He had childhood trauma, as
• 26:52
  we all do. He was a sex addict. It was... due
• 26:56
  to trauma that he had as a child. And sometimes
• 27:03
  people act out and they try to take control of
• 27:10
  things that they couldn't take control of as
• 27:13
  a child. So he did a lot of reckless things.
• 27:19
  He knew it. I knew it. He knew he had a problem.
• 27:24
  But that's what I loved about him. He was a fucked
• 27:28
  up dude, but he knew he was fucked up. And I
• 27:31
  can 100 % talk about this without reservation
• 27:36
  because he was my best friend and I think about
• 27:40
  him every day and I knew who he was and I miss
• 27:45
  him and I love him. So if you listen to his lyrics
• 27:48
  and they're off -putting and gross and weird,
• 27:51
  just know that he knew that that's the reaction
• 27:56
  people were going to have. It wasn't shock value.
• 28:00
  It was exercising demons. So if you hear a song
• 28:06
  by Big Jed or the Mutilators and you're like,
• 28:09
  this guy's fucked up, he knew he was fucked up.
• 28:13
  So how did you first join the band? OK, well,
• 28:17
  Todd and his band were a peripheral character
• 28:20
  on the scene. We would see each other and we'd
• 28:24
  talk. And, you know, like I said, he was very
• 28:26
  funny and very sarcastic. And I like that because
• 28:28
  I am sarcastic also. I always thought he was
• 28:31
  very funny. I like funny people. I was kicked
• 28:35
  out of high school. I was hanging around just
• 28:38
  being a degenerate in my I was not working. I
• 28:42
  didn't want to get a job. And that only goes
• 28:45
  so far. By the time you're like hitting 19, 20
• 28:50
  years old, eventually your mother's going to
• 28:53
  say, you need to get a job or you either need
• 28:56
  to go to school. I did not want to go to work.
• 29:00
  So I said, okay, I'll go to BC. I went back to
• 29:04
  night school and I got my high school diploma.
• 29:06
  I enrolled in BC. I took a bunch of dumb classes
• 29:09
  that I didn't care about. And most of the time
• 29:12
  at BC, I just general ed, but I would just daydream
• 29:17
  in class. I had no interest in school. I would
• 29:22
  just daydream about being in a band. I just wanted
• 29:25
  to play music. Let me ask you a question. I'm
• 29:28
  going to put a pin in that and I'm going to ask
• 29:30
  you a question. Sure. You are a music fan, correct?
• 29:33
  Yeah. Okay. When you hear a good song or a song
• 29:38
  you really like, do you get chills? Do you get
• 29:40
  goosebumps? I have on a really emotional songs,
• 29:44
  but there's a lot of songs that I really like
• 29:47
  that I don't get chills for. It's not a common
• 29:49
  thing. Okay. I've asked people this before. I
• 29:52
  assumed everyone felt like that, but apparently
• 29:55
  not. Like I asked my kids and they're like, no,
• 29:58
  I don't feel like that. Okay. When I hear a good
• 30:01
  song, like I get goosebumps and like my hair
• 30:04
  on my neck stands up like, oh my God, this is
• 30:06
  so good. So I love music. I love it. And so my
• 30:14
  whole life, I just wanted to be in a band. I
• 30:17
  didn't want to be a rock star. I just wanted
• 30:19
  to be a working musician, just touring, playing
• 30:22
  music, putting out records. I don't care if anyone
• 30:24
  likes it. My hope was to be in a working band
• 30:29
  and maybe be like, have a... Cult level of success.
• 30:36
  I never, like I said, I did not want to be Bon
• 30:38
  Jovi. I just want to be as cool as, I don't know,
• 30:42
  butthole surfers, whatever. Just a cool cult
• 30:46
  band. Yeah. So anyway, I would just daydream
• 30:49
  in class about being in a band. And I tried to
• 30:54
  get something going with friends and it was not
• 30:57
  what I was looking for. Paul Birch. Went to BC
• 31:02
  and we would cross paths as we were changing
• 31:04
  classes and I'd always stop and chat with him
• 31:06
  because he's really a nice guy. He was in Big
• 31:11
  Jet at the time and there was a rumor going around
• 31:13
  that they were about to get signed to an LA independent
• 31:16
  label called Triple X and they were about to
• 31:20
  go on tour. And I was super jealous because that's
• 31:24
  all I wanted. And then I heard their bass player
• 31:27
  left town. So they needed a bass player. And
• 31:31
  I said, okay, it is now or never. One day I saw
• 31:35
  Paul and I stopped him in the hall and I was
• 31:37
  like, hey, hey, I heard you guys need a bass
• 31:40
  player. Your bass player left. And he goes, yeah,
• 31:43
  yeah, we need a bass player. Are you playing?
• 31:45
  And I was like, yeah. Now I had seen Big Jed
• 31:48
  and I'd seen their former bass player and he
• 31:50
  was really good. He plays like, you know, like,
• 31:54
  like super intricate, like. A lot of fills and
• 31:58
  stuff. I'm not that style. I am strictly D .D.
• 32:01
  Ramone, just root note, just da -da -da -da -da
• 32:03
  -da -da. That's my style. I'm good at it, but
• 32:07
  I mean, that's all I can play. So I told him,
• 32:11
  yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like, oh, okay, yeah,
• 32:14
  I'll give you a tape. And so a couple days later
• 32:18
  or whatever, he gave me a tape. I took it home
• 32:20
  and I played it. The songs were so good, but
• 32:23
  they were so hard and complicated, and there
• 32:26
  were so many changes. It was good. They were
• 32:28
  short, which I liked, but they were super catchy,
• 32:31
  earworms, but the bass lines were hard. And,
• 32:36
  man, I played that tape over and over and over,
• 32:40
  trying to learn it exactly as it was on the tape.
• 32:45
  And it was way out of my comfort zone. And, man,
• 32:50
  I just... practiced and practice and practice
• 32:53
  and practice and practice. When I felt like I
• 32:55
  was good enough, I told Paul, I said, hey, hey
• 32:59
  man, I played your tape. It was really cool.
• 33:01
  I learned songs, you know, let's jam or whatever.
• 33:04
  And you guys can see if you like me. And he was
• 33:06
  like, okay, cool. So he called me and he said,
• 33:10
  okay, we're going to be taking photos for the
• 33:14
  record. And they said, meet us downtown. And
• 33:17
  I was like, okay. So I went downtown and there
• 33:21
  was, I think it was Paul's girlfriend at the
• 33:23
  time. And then there was Todd. And this was like
• 33:26
  the first time I've seen him in like a year or
• 33:29
  whenever, not casually like at a party. And she's
• 33:33
  taking photos of us downtown. And I was like,
• 33:35
  wait, am I in the band? And their attitude was
• 33:39
  like, yeah, if you want to be in it. I was like,
• 33:42
  you haven't heard me play yet. And they're like,
• 33:44
  who cares? I was like, okay. And so we eventually
• 33:49
  got around to practicing. And I kept up the best
• 33:58
  I could with them. It was just me, Todd, and
• 34:01
  Paul playing. And I don't think I won them over.
• 34:07
  I didn't even have a bass. By the way, I should
• 34:09
  mention I had to borrow a bass. I had a guitar,
• 34:12
  but I did not have a bass. So I had to borrow
• 34:14
  a bass from a friend. I didn't have an amp. I
• 34:21
  had to borrow their amp. Anyway, so I kept up,
• 34:24
  but I didn't, I don't think I won them over with
• 34:27
  my playing. I won them over because we just seemed
• 34:31
  to click sense of humor wise and just like immediately,
• 34:35
  I don't know how it happened, but me and Todd
• 34:38
  just that day became best friends because We
• 34:45
  just clicked on a psychic level. He knew all
• 34:49
  the TV shows I watched as a kid. He knew them
• 34:53
  all. The more obscure, the better. All the music
• 34:56
  I knew, he knew. We just had the same sense of
• 35:00
  humor. We just completely clicked. And they told
• 35:05
  me they did not want me in the band because of
• 35:07
  my playing. They wanted me because of my personality
• 35:09
  and because I was just cool, I guess. So I was
• 35:13
  officially in the band. So I've listened to some
• 35:17
  of the recordings that I could find of Big Jed.
• 35:19
  My favorite song by far is Him Before Us. What's
• 35:23
  that song about? Well, the first line is, Lynette
• 35:27
  had the right idea, but the wrong administration.
• 35:30
  That is about Squeaky Frome, who was a member
• 35:33
  of the Manson family who tried to assassinate
• 35:36
  Gerald Ford in the 70s. Lynette had the right
• 35:39
  idea, but the wrong administration. I can't remember
• 35:42
  what the rest of the words were, but it was pretty
• 35:45
  much about shooting the president. Ronald Reagan
• 35:49
  at the time. Yes, Ronald Reagan. It was about
• 35:51
  shooting Ronald Reagan. But it was very veiled
• 35:53
  and vague. Like, if you listen to it, you might
• 35:56
  not understand. Yeah, he doesn't say, let's go
• 35:59
  kill the president. He's just like saying, we
• 36:02
  need to get him before he gets us. So Him Before
• 36:06
  Us has a really fast, very difficult guitar part.
• 36:09
  Is that something Todd was playing or is that
• 36:10
  a different guitarist that's playing there? Oh,
• 36:12
  it's all Todd. Wow. It's Todd. That's really
• 36:15
  difficult to play. Yes. Yeah. And the weird thing,
• 36:18
  he was a crazy good guitar player. He could play
• 36:22
  anything. Like, I saw him pick up a banjo once
• 36:26
  and he was like... And I was like, I didn't know
• 36:30
  he played... banjo and he's like this is the
• 36:32
  first time i've ever touched a banjo he's just
• 36:34
  one of those guys that i can't stand that can
• 36:37
  just play anything it just comes natural to him
• 36:40
  where i struggle to play music and for him it
• 36:45
  just flowed out of him he could just play anything
• 36:48
  like he's just one of those kind of guys just
• 36:51
  super talented um yeah uh the weird thing is
• 36:58
  is at the time He had this super ugly Kramer
• 37:04
  hot pink guitar with a pointy headstock and that
• 37:09
  guitar, I messed around with it a few times and
• 37:12
  it was absolutely unplayable. Like it had these
• 37:14
  super high frets on it. Like you could, I could
• 37:18
  barely press down the strings on it and he still
• 37:21
  could just get this great sound out of it. I
• 37:25
  don't know how he did it. Wow. Yeah. But I mean,
• 37:30
  yeah yeah he's just one of those guys that can
• 37:33
  just play anything and like you said earlier
• 37:38
  it's like cow punk it's like proto cow punk it's
• 37:42
  very country sounding in the way that the guitar
• 37:46
  the lead guitars are played but it's super fast
• 37:49
  it's really aggressive there's some distortion
• 37:52
  there and it doesn't sound like country it doesn't
• 37:55
  really sound like punk but it definitely sounds
• 37:58
  like something in between Yeah, and then in the
• 38:01
  middle of the song, I don't know if you noticed,
• 38:03
  there's a little breakdown where he plays Bach,
• 38:05
  a little classical piece, which is really cool
• 38:09
  and sounds cool. Yeah, a lot of his music was
• 38:13
  very country -ish, rockabilly -ish tinged. And
• 38:17
  when I talked to him about it, he was like, what
• 38:19
  are you talking about? So I think a lot of that
• 38:21
  country influence was maybe subconscious, which
• 38:26
  is interesting. I met his dad and his dad was
• 38:30
  like this greaser dude with a pump door and sideburns.
• 38:33
  He was an older guy, very nice guy. And he was
• 38:36
  like redneck dude. So I think maybe that country
• 38:42
  influence was just part of his, I hate to say
• 38:45
  DNA, but it was just part of him. So of course
• 38:50
  his music is going to sound like that. I don't
• 38:52
  think he was deliberately trying to. sound country
• 38:56
  -ish, but it's, you know, you're from Bakersfield,
• 38:59
  you're gonna sound like country music. What other
• 39:03
  songs by Big Jed do you think stick out for you
• 39:05
  as highlights? He had this great song that he
• 39:10
  should have released as a single instead of the
• 39:12
  single he did called She's Pissed that was just
• 39:16
  super cool and catchy. I thought it was his best
• 39:22
  song, but for... I think he recorded it and he
• 39:25
  meant to put it out, but he wasn't happy with
• 39:28
  the recording, so that's why he ended up with
• 39:30
  the song he did. But I really think if that song
• 39:34
  would have been released in the 80s, it would
• 39:36
  have got some airplay and got some attention.
• 39:41
  That one had some kind of like hard rock and
• 39:45
  funk influence in it, right? Yeah, She's Pissed
• 39:48
  did have kind of a funk feel to it, but it was
• 39:52
  years and years before white boys slapping the
• 39:56
  bass funk type crap was in vogue. I just liked
• 40:00
  it. I thought it was a really super catchy song
• 40:02
  and it was a cool song. And it's a shame he didn't
• 40:05
  put that out. Was there a fan favorite? Yes.
• 40:10
  The song we would open with was my favorite.
• 40:13
  It was a song he didn't care about, but I love
• 40:16
  the song so much. I told him, I love this song.
• 40:19
  Let's let this be the opening song. And it was
• 40:21
  a song called Big Magnet. And it is a kind of
• 40:25
  a, I don't know what genre you would call it.
• 40:30
  It was, I called it kind of rockabilly, but it
• 40:34
  wasn't really rockabilly. I don't know if it's
• 40:36
  country, but it was a song called Big Magnet.
• 40:39
  And it's a... It's a slower, depressing song,
• 40:43
  and it's a weird song to open with. But it's
• 40:45
  such a great song. It's on that live CD I'm going
• 40:49
  to let you take home. Sure. It's such a weird
• 40:55
  song to open a set with. It's not what you expect,
• 40:58
  but the audience always dug it. And in fact,
• 41:02
  on this live tape, at the end of the show, Todd,
• 41:06
  on the microphone. Says, we ran out of songs.
• 41:09
  And someone in the audience yells, play that
• 41:12
  first song again. So, I mean, it was a good song.
• 41:16
  That's cool. Is it about Bakersfield? No. Because
• 41:20
  that's what they said in the documentary. No.
• 41:23
  It's about suicide. It's not about Bakersfield.
• 41:26
  And the person that said it's about Bakersfield
• 41:28
  is Nate and he's full of shit. It's not about
• 41:31
  Bakersfield. It's about suicide. If you listen
• 41:34
  to lyrics, it's about depression and suicide.
• 41:37
  The big magnet is just depression pulling you
• 41:40
  in. I don't know why Nate said that. He didn't
• 41:43
  know what he was talking about. I used to tell
• 41:45
  him how much I love the song big magnet. And
• 41:48
  he was like, he was like, you know, I'm thinking
• 41:53
  about changing the lyrics to bitch magnet. I
• 41:57
  was like, I will kill you if you do that. And
• 41:58
  he's like, no, no, we're going to call it bitch
• 42:00
  magnet. Like I'm a bitch magnet. And I was like,
• 42:05
  If you do that, I will quit the band. And he's
• 42:07
  like, no, we're going to do that. He was just
• 42:09
  messing with me because he knew I hated that.
• 42:13
  So Big Jed came out with a record and it has
• 42:21
  a really controversial title, right? Yes. Okay.
• 42:26
  Before you go on tour, you have to have product.
• 42:30
  I mean, you can't just show up and say, hey,
• 42:32
  where are these dumb shits from Bakersfield?
• 42:34
  Can we play at your club? You have to have evidence
• 42:37
  that you are an actual band. So the band, not
• 42:40
  me because I didn't have any money, Todd and
• 42:43
  Paul pooled their money, recorded a record, all
• 42:47
  recorded at Todd's house. They mastered it. They
• 42:51
  printed it up. I don't know how many copies of
• 42:55
  a record. Now. As I said, Todd had millions,
• 43:05
  well, not millions, hundreds of great, super
• 43:08
  catchy songs. For whatever reason, he chose to
• 43:15
  put out the most controversial song he had, which
• 43:23
  was a song called Die, F word, Die. He said he
• 43:31
  wrote the song. I don't know if this is true,
• 43:34
  but this is the story he told everyone. He wrote
• 43:36
  the song after watching an episode of Geraldo
• 43:39
  where a guy, a gay dude, said he was intentionally
• 43:44
  going around spreading AIDS to people. I don't
• 43:48
  know if that's true or not. I think maybe he
• 43:50
  just dreamed up the scenario in his head. But
• 43:53
  the song is a song in three parts. It starts
• 43:55
  with two hillbillies. or rednecks or idiots talking
• 44:01
  over a drum machine, talking about how you get
• 44:06
  AIDS. The second part is like a Slayer style
• 44:13
  metal song about a guy that was infected with
• 44:19
  AIDS because a gay dude that had AIDS slept with
• 44:23
  his girlfriend and the guy. contracted AIDS from
• 44:28
  his girlfriend and he was going to kill the dude.
• 44:32
  Then the third part of the song is just like
• 44:35
  a super offensive refrain, I guess. Why? Okay,
• 44:44
  I get it. You want to make controversy. You want
• 44:47
  to shock people. You want to get people's attention.
• 44:55
  I understand that. But of all things, why did
• 44:59
  it have to be that? When we would play that song
• 45:05
  live, as soon as the song ended, I would always
• 45:09
  grab the mic and go, he's just kidding. That
• 45:12
  song caused a lot of problems. We got on the
• 45:20
  news. The news did a story about us. If you see
• 45:25
  the video, I'm the only guy not wearing sunglasses.
• 45:29
  I noticed before the film camera showed up, everyone
• 45:33
  put on sunglasses really quick. I was the only
• 45:36
  guy that did not put on sunglasses. I understand
• 45:40
  why they did it now. So that was not smart of
• 45:45
  me. I did use a fake name. But yeah, I... During
• 45:53
  that interview, I tried to explain, we're not
• 45:56
  homophobic. This is just a dumb song. We don't
• 45:59
  hate gay people. We've never hated gay people.
• 46:06
  But people didn't take that way. You know, can
• 46:13
  you blame him? I mean, if you really sit down
• 46:17
  and listen to the record. If you listen to the
• 46:22
  flip side, there's a song on the flip side called
• 46:24
  My Town First. And if you listen to that song,
• 46:27
  it's about Bakersfield. And the lyrics are, everyone
• 46:30
  in this town is a fucking redneck idiot. I hate
• 46:34
  it here. I want Russia to drop a bomb on this
• 46:37
  town because everyone here sucks. So, I mean,
• 46:41
  if the singer on one side is saying he hates
• 46:44
  stupid people, he hates ignorance, part of the
• 46:48
  lyrics of My Town First say, Everyone here thinks
• 46:51
  they're fucking Rambo. Now, if you hear that
• 46:54
  song, you would assume, okay, he doesn't like
• 46:58
  ignorance. And then you listen to the flip side
• 47:01
  where he's saying, die, F word, die. You think,
• 47:04
  okay, there's a conflict here. Like I said, Big
• 47:10
  Jed was a character. He was singing in character.
• 47:14
  I'm not making excuses. I'm really not. It's
• 47:19
  just, I don't, I did not write the song. I did
• 47:25
  not even perform on that single. That is not
• 47:27
  me playing on this single. And the motherfuckers
• 47:29
  put my name on the single. So now that's going
• 47:31
  to haunt me for the rest of my life. I did not
• 47:34
  play bass on that. You can tell I did not play
• 47:37
  bass on it because the bass playing is good.
• 47:39
  I don't play good. But they put my name on the
• 47:43
  single. Luckily, they didn't put my last name.
• 47:48
  Yeah, so Flipside magazine, a magazine I used
• 47:51
  to love and respect, they gave us a good review.
• 47:54
  They got the joke. They said, these are some
• 47:57
  serious pissed off motherfuckers from Bakersfield,
• 47:59
  California. And I appreciated that. But every
• 48:04
  other magazine, Maximum Rock and Roll, said we
• 48:07
  were assholes who should commit suicide. We tried
• 48:12
  to book a show in Boston and the guy said, I
• 48:14
  would never have you play here. You guys suck.
• 48:18
  You guys need to listen to David Bowie. And I'm
• 48:21
  like, dude, I have more David Bowie records than
• 48:24
  you have. So yeah, that's just one of the many
• 48:29
  things that haunt me. It was May and they were
• 48:35
  like, okay, well, we're going on tour in June.
• 48:38
  Triple X has set up a tour for us and we're going
• 48:40
  to go all over the country. And I was like, yes.
• 48:46
  Because, like I said, I didn't have a job. I
• 48:48
  didn't have money. I had no future. I was going
• 48:52
  to school only to kill time. I didn't care about
• 48:55
  school. All I wanted to do was just get in that
• 48:59
  van and just travel the country and play music
• 49:02
  and just, you know, be a working musician. And
• 49:09
  my dream came true. A friend of mine said, you
• 49:15
  are the only guy that can sit in his room and
• 49:17
  dream about being a rock star. And it happened.
• 49:21
  Not that I became a rock star. That wasn't my
• 49:23
  goal. But you know what I mean. So the nationwide
• 49:25
  tour was Bakersfield to Phoenix to the East Coast.
• 49:29
  Is that right? How do you know this? Where did
• 49:32
  you find that? It's in the Bakersfield, California.
• 49:34
  They did a story. You guys did interviews after
• 49:38
  this tour and told all about your experience.
• 49:40
  Oh, okay. Okay, yes. Yes, our first show after
• 49:42
  leaving Bakersfield was Phoenix. That show, they
• 49:47
  refused to pay us. And we were like, oh, shit.
• 49:52
  Well, we planned to use the money that they were
• 49:56
  going to pay us, a hundred bucks or whatever,
• 49:57
  to use for gas to the next show. We're going
• 50:02
  to have to turn around and go home. And all of
• 50:05
  us collectively said, no, we cannot go home and
• 50:08
  defeat. Because the paper was, the guy who wrote
• 50:12
  the local music section of the paper was like,
• 50:14
  hey, good luck to Big Jed on their big tour.
• 50:16
  We wish them the best and blah, blah, blah. So
• 50:19
  we cannot go home after one show. No way. So
• 50:23
  we took, we pooled what little money we had.
• 50:26
  I think I had $40. And the guys put in their
• 50:31
  money and said, Fuck it. We're going to do it
• 50:33
  whether we make money or not. So we continued
• 50:35
  on and, uh, next show. I don't remember. I don't
• 50:40
  have it, but I know we played Oklahoma city and
• 50:42
  we hung out with the flaming lips who were nobodies,
• 50:46
  but we hung out with them and they were very
• 50:48
  cool. And I wish I would have took photos, but.
• 50:51
  We hung out with the Flaming Lips. I can't remember
• 50:54
  all the cities we played. We had great shows.
• 50:56
  We had shows where nobody came. I think Pittsburgh,
• 51:00
  nobody came to our show. We played Chicago, which
• 51:04
  was a blast. We played a huge show there. And
• 51:08
  the best part of the tour was we had shows canceled.
• 51:13
  The guy that booked our tour was a guy from Triple
• 51:16
  X Records, and he was an idiot. He didn't know
• 51:18
  what he was doing. And a lot of our shows got
• 51:21
  canceled. So we had a layover in New Jersey.
• 51:24
  So we were stuck there for a week and we were
• 51:28
  pretty much homeless, just living on the street,
• 51:31
  eating out of dumpsters because none of us had
• 51:33
  money. And that was probably the best time we
• 51:36
  had. We have a live recording of our New Jersey
• 51:39
  show in New Brunswick, New Jersey at the Court
• 51:42
  Tavern. I have it. It's off the soundboard and
• 51:45
  it sounds awesome. And if I can find it, I'll
• 51:47
  let you borrow it or use it or whatever. We played
• 51:51
  mostly college towns, Madison, Wisconsin. We
• 51:53
  played, I don't remember. Anyway, we had zero
• 51:57
  money. Like I said, we were pretty much just
• 52:00
  sleeping on the streets in parks. We did not
• 52:04
  eat. We made zero money. We made lots of friends
• 52:08
  and had the best time of our lives. Our last
• 52:12
  show, we circled the States. I don't know how
• 52:16
  many shows we played. 10, 12, I don't know. Circled
• 52:19
  the States. Last show was San Francisco. By then,
• 52:23
  the van was covered in graffiti. We just spray
• 52:27
  painted it. So we were constantly getting pulled
• 52:29
  over. Because, I mean, of course we would. Anyway,
• 52:33
  so the last show was San Francisco at the Covered
• 52:36
  Wagon. News of our single had gotten out. And
• 52:42
  this was the height of the AIDS epidemic. There
• 52:45
  was a group in San Francisco called ACT UP. I
• 52:48
  don't know what it stood for. They decided to
• 52:51
  show up to the show and cause a riot. And they
• 52:56
  did. And what was cool is they were chucking
• 53:03
  bottles at us. And they were starting fights
• 53:05
  in the parking lot. And they said they were going
• 53:08
  to kill us. And we played our first song and
• 53:10
  they all froze and stopped. And I knew it that
• 53:15
  they were like, oh shit, these guys sound good.
• 53:18
  Because we, on that tour, we really got our chops.
• 53:24
  I mean, we started nailing the songs where we
• 53:27
  were really tight and we were like a good rock
• 53:30
  and roll unit. And we played our first song and
• 53:33
  they all froze and they stopped throwing shit
• 53:35
  because they're like, oh man, these guys are
• 53:37
  good. That sucks. I wanted to hate him. So we
• 53:42
  played our whole set, and I think we won them
• 53:47
  over. Then the article in The Advocate came out,
• 53:52
  the gay magazine. He did an article about us
• 53:55
  where he said, oh, I didn't mention the thing
• 54:00
  that happened. I forgot the most important thing
• 54:04
  of the San Francisco show. Yes. Okay. I forgot
• 54:09
  about that. How could I forget? Okay. Todd grabbed
• 54:16
  the mic and said, you guys think we're homophobic?
• 54:22
  And they're like, fuck you. We hate you. And
• 54:26
  he's like, I can prove I'm not homophobic. One
• 54:29
  of you guys come up here and I will S your D
• 54:33
  here on the stage. Come on up, pussies. Come
• 54:37
  on, I dare you, I dare you. Nobody did shit.
• 54:40
  They're like, okay. He's like, come on, I'm not
• 54:44
  going to play another song until somebody comes
• 54:46
  up here and I will S your D on stage, right?
• 54:51
  And finally a guy came up and that's exactly
• 54:55
  what happened. And after it was over, Todd said,
• 54:58
  what do you got to say now? They couldn't say
• 55:01
  shit. So they watched the rest of our show and
• 55:04
  we won them over. Of course, there's better ways
• 55:08
  to win over an audience than doing that. But
• 55:12
  that was to prove a point that it's just a song.
• 55:17
  We don't want to hurt anybody. So anyway, after
• 55:23
  that night, we went home victorious. So this
• 55:31
  article in The Advocate, and if you know what
• 55:33
  The Advocate is, it's a queer magazine that was
• 55:37
  really important and dealt with a lot of queer
• 55:40
  issues. And the title of the article is called
• 55:43
  Big Jed Sucks. The author named Adam Block, he
• 55:47
  says, on hearing the title, I dismiss Die F Slur
• 55:51
  Die as a stupid, desperate attempt for attention
• 55:53
  by some bargain basement bigots. It seemed best
• 55:57
  to ignore it. Clearly, he went to the show. He
• 56:00
  was going to give a bad review. He just wanted
• 56:02
  to document it. But by the end of the show, he
• 56:06
  said, I could no longer just write off Big Jed
• 56:10
  as Rubes and Rednecks. So I took a closer look
• 56:13
  at the single and interviewed its author. And
• 56:16
  he talks about the three parts of the song, like
• 56:18
  you said. And he says that it's basically that
• 56:22
  it's satire. And he goes on to conclude that.
• 56:27
  Big Jed is expecting too much of the audience
• 56:29
  to understand that this song would be satirical.
• 56:34
  He also said that Big Jed's music surprised and
• 56:39
  pleased him, but he doesn't let the band off
• 56:41
  for this homophobic song. He states that Todd
• 56:45
  is naive and boneheaded. He states that Todd
• 56:48
  does have an ear for satire, celebration, and
• 56:51
  twisted wit. But on this song, he is derailed
• 56:55
  by his stubborn identification with a couple
• 56:58
  of idiotic ideas, and he doesn't seem to be ready
• 57:01
  to give these up. Musically, he states that Big
• 57:06
  Jed is the mutant offspring of Buck Owens and
• 57:10
  Big Black. And at the end, they do hype up a
• 57:14
  record called No Fucking Regrets, which was going
• 57:17
  to be the LP name, according to this. Yeah. But...
• 57:22
  That's what Adam Block said in The Advocate.
• 57:26
  If I could hunt down all those master tapes,
• 57:33
  I would finally put out that record. I mean,
• 57:37
  I have cassette versions. I suppose I could have
• 57:41
  someone clean them up and put out the record
• 57:44
  finally. One thing I should mention is Todd very
• 57:49
  generously. I told him, okay, here's a story
• 57:54
  from the tour. I did not tell. Believe this or
• 57:58
  not. Okay, so we toured a bunch of places. When
• 58:07
  we came back home and I was living in San Francisco
• 58:13
  and I was listening to Live 105, the radio station,
• 58:18
  and my work. There was a song by a brand new
• 58:21
  band called the Goo Goo Dolls. And the song is
• 58:25
  called... I don't remember what it's called.
• 58:31
  Anyway, it sounded exactly, exactly like a Big
• 58:36
  Jed song. Like the chords, the melody, everything.
• 58:40
  And it was enough to make me think, were these
• 58:44
  motherfuckers at one of our shows and they stole
• 58:46
  one of the songs? So I told Todd, I said, Todd,
• 58:50
  you have to copyright your songs. I mean, you
• 58:53
  need to, like, you need to make a copyright because
• 58:58
  someone could rip off your songs and you are
• 59:01
  powerless. There's nothing you can do about it.
• 59:04
  He, so I was the one that did everything because
• 59:07
  he was too lazy to do anything. So we took all
• 59:12
  of his songs, put them on cassettes. I listed
• 59:16
  every single song. You have to put the title
• 59:19
  of the song and who performed it. And there was
• 59:23
  literally 50 songs. And he said, put your name
• 59:28
  on it as co -songwriter. And I was like, I didn't
• 59:31
  write any of this. And he's like, I don't care.
• 59:33
  I trust you. Just put your name on it. So we
• 59:36
  copyrighted all his songs as Thompson Goodsell.
• 59:43
  I will tell you right now, and I'm telling whoever
• 59:45
  listens to this. I did not write those songs.
• 59:48
  I did not write those songs, but they are in
• 59:52
  my motherfucking name because he's dead. So I
• 59:56
  own those songs. I'm not going to do anything
• 59:58
  with them. I'm not planning to make any money
• 1:00:00
  off of them, but I'm just saying those songs,
• 1:00:03
  he generously told me to put my name on them.
• 1:00:06
  So one of these days, I am going to put out a
• 1:00:09
  record as soon as I can. I need help, obviously.
• 1:00:15
  As soon as I can gather up the tapes and everything
• 1:00:19
  and just whatever money it takes, I will put
• 1:00:22
  that out on record to fulfill that article, what
• 1:00:27
  he said in that article. But I just need help.
• 1:00:32
  If you're out there, please help me. I don't
• 1:00:34
  know how to convert cassette tapes that are literally
• 1:00:38
  45 years old to... you know to transfer this
• 1:00:44
  to some kind of vinyl so if you can help me reach
• 1:00:47
  out please i mean if anybody cares that is by
• 1:00:52
  the way i did not write the songs but uh there
• 1:00:55
  are a few that i was the muse for like i would
• 1:01:01
  tell him something funny and then a couple days
• 1:01:05
  later he said he would show up with a song that
• 1:01:08
  he wrote about something i told him about But
• 1:01:11
  that's as far as my songwriting went. I did not
• 1:01:14
  compose melodies or anything like that. Well,
• 1:01:18
  we talked about one kind of audience participation
• 1:01:21
  that happened in San Francisco. And we've talked
• 1:01:24
  about with Mark when he was on the podcast, he
• 1:01:27
  told a story about Todd where they were at the
• 1:01:31
  fairgrounds and the cops were arresting him.
• 1:01:34
  And he was still saying funny things into the
• 1:01:36
  mic while the cops were. asking him questions
• 1:01:40
  in front of everyone so what are some other interesting
• 1:01:43
  crowd or stage antics was he getting up to not
• 1:01:48
  necessarily with big dread but with our other
• 1:01:51
  band the mutilators there was a lot of crazy
• 1:01:53
  shows like um if i told you it would sound like
• 1:01:56
  i'm just making up stuff and try me um we played
• 1:02:03
  this club mars um That's what Bam Bam's was called
• 1:02:08
  later, right? Yeah. I think after Bam Bam's,
• 1:02:11
  it changed its name to Mars. It was ran by John
• 1:02:13
  Bentley, the promoter guy. Our drummer, Daniel
• 1:02:19
  Arias, his father was a musician. He was in some
• 1:02:23
  bands in the 60s. Cool. And yeah, Daniel played
• 1:02:26
  his drum set, which was a beautiful vintage red
• 1:02:30
  sparkle Ludwig. From the early 60s, it was an
• 1:02:36
  awesome little jazz bebop kind of kit that he
• 1:02:39
  obviously took a lot of pride in because it was
• 1:02:42
  his dad's. And I just remember for no reason
• 1:02:50
  at all during a set at Mars, Todd just decided
• 1:02:56
  in the middle of a song to pee all over the drums.
• 1:03:01
  that really made Daniel mad. And he quit the
• 1:03:05
  band that night and we begged him to stay. And
• 1:03:08
  he was like, no, you peed all over my dad's drums.
• 1:03:12
  And he quit for about 24 hours before we talked
• 1:03:16
  him back into the band. So he stayed. Wow. So
• 1:03:18
  yeah, that's, uh, that's just the charm Todd
• 1:03:23
  had. He could talk back into the band after peeing
• 1:03:27
  on their drums. That was one, uh, thing that
• 1:03:31
  happened. There was a million things. That's
• 1:03:36
  the only one that pops into my head right now.
• 1:03:39
  After our tour, we had a band meeting. Okay,
• 1:03:44
  XXX wants to put out our record. They want to
• 1:03:49
  record us and put out our record. We need to
• 1:03:51
  relocate. We can't stay in Bakersfield. Where
• 1:03:54
  do you guys want to move? I said, I want to move
• 1:03:57
  to LA. I want to move to LA. where all my punk
• 1:04:00
  rock heroes are from. I want to rent a house
• 1:04:04
  in Hollywood. I want us to live like the monkeys.
• 1:04:07
  I want to have adventures every day. And we'll
• 1:04:11
  just have a band house where we rehearse and
• 1:04:14
  we'll just play gigs in LA and we'll live like
• 1:04:18
  Charles Bukowski. We'll just, you know, get drunk
• 1:04:22
  and rock and roll. They said, no, we're going
• 1:04:27
  to San Francisco. I was like, no, I hate San
• 1:04:32
  Francisco. San Francisco sucks. Because it does.
• 1:04:36
  The whole city smells like piss. I hate San Francisco.
• 1:04:40
  It's nothing but trendy, shallow, stupid people.
• 1:04:45
  I don't care. That city can eat shit. I do not
• 1:04:47
  like San Francisco. Ironically, I have a painting
• 1:04:51
  on the wall of San Francisco. Yeah, I was like,
• 1:04:54
  I'm staring at this painting of San Francisco
• 1:04:56
  right now. Yeah. I don't care for San Francisco.
• 1:05:01
  The music scene there sucks. Oh, Jefferson Airplane.
• 1:05:05
  Oh, wow. Great. Primus. Four non -blondes. Give
• 1:05:09
  me a break. I want to go where the action is.
• 1:05:11
  L .A. I got outvoted. What am I going to do?
• 1:05:14
  I don't have any money. I'm just the bass player.
• 1:05:18
  So there was a rehearsal studio in San Francisco
• 1:05:23
  that said. Todd, if you set up a recording studio
• 1:05:27
  where you record bands, you guys can crash here.
• 1:05:32
  So we're like, okay, deal. So we moved to San
• 1:05:36
  Francisco, the whole band. We move into this
• 1:05:40
  recording studio called Sea Linen Studios. It's
• 1:05:43
  in the Mission District, which is the worst part
• 1:05:47
  of San Francisco. The whole city sucks, but the
• 1:05:50
  Mission District is like, have you ever seen
• 1:05:52
  the movie Taxi Driver? Yeah. Okay. It was like
• 1:05:55
  taxi driver. It's just like filth and like people
• 1:06:01
  dying on the streets and garbage everywhere and
• 1:06:04
  crime and just roving gangs of monsters. We lived
• 1:06:10
  there. We were squatting in a studio, right?
• 1:06:13
  And it sucked. We were living off a packet of
• 1:06:17
  Top Ramen a day and sleeping on the floor of
• 1:06:20
  this rehearsal studio that smelled like piss
• 1:06:22
  and cigarettes and stale beer. But, you know,
• 1:06:25
  it was just the sacrifices we were willing to
• 1:06:29
  do to be, you know, be a band. Yeah. Anyway,
• 1:06:35
  so we're living there. We're trying to book shows.
• 1:06:39
  No one's going to book us because our reputation.
• 1:06:41
  So we play a few shows under fake names. And
• 1:06:45
  at that point, we're like. We're not going to
• 1:06:48
  build a following if we're playing shows with
• 1:06:50
  fake names because nobody's paying us anyway.
• 1:06:52
  We're not making any money. We're just playing
• 1:06:54
  shows under fake names. We're not going to build
• 1:06:57
  a following this way. This is stupid. So the
• 1:07:00
  band just kind of disintegrated, fell apart.
• 1:07:03
  Todd moved back to Bakersfield. We got kicked
• 1:07:06
  out of the studio. So now I'm homeless. Damn.
• 1:07:10
  Do you know the band RKL? Yeah, Rich Kids on
• 1:07:13
  LSD. Yes. Luckily, we knew those guys. And they
• 1:07:18
  let me squat with them. They had a house that
• 1:07:21
  they were squatting in. They called it the White
• 1:07:23
  Trash Hotel. And God bless those guys. They let
• 1:07:27
  me squat with them. So I was living in a squat.
• 1:07:31
  It was like the Lower Haight area. I don't remember
• 1:07:37
  exactly where it was. I should know, but I don't
• 1:07:39
  remember. But Bomber, the drummer, who was an
• 1:07:43
  actual rich kid. I got to show you something.
• 1:07:46
  Put a pin in this. Sure. I thought the name Rich
• 1:07:50
  Kids on Elle, I thought that was an ironic name.
• 1:07:53
  No, they were actual rich kids. They were all.
• 1:07:58
  Josh Brolin talks about how he was hanging out
• 1:08:01
  with them too. No, he was in that band. He says
• 1:08:03
  he was in the band, but he wasn't really. He
• 1:08:06
  was like in it ish. Wow. I didn't know that.
• 1:08:09
  He's been given a sound interview about it. But
• 1:08:12
  yeah. Yeah, they're actual rich kids. And they
• 1:08:14
  were on LSD. It's true. Yeah. Well, Bomber, the
• 1:08:20
  drummer, I think that was his real name because
• 1:08:23
  I saw a letter from his mom to him and she wrote
• 1:08:26
  Bomber. So I don't know if that was his real
• 1:08:28
  name. It was spelled B -O -M -M -E -R. It wasn't
• 1:08:31
  spelled like dropping bombs. It was spelled Bomber.
• 1:08:34
  He took me to his mom's house in Marin. And this
• 1:08:38
  poster was on the wall. I was like, oh, wow,
• 1:08:40
  I remember that poster from the 80s. And he goes,
• 1:08:44
  yeah, that's me. I was like, oh, shit, really?
• 1:08:47
  So if you want to see this poster, Google the
• 1:08:50
  poster that says expose your kids to wildlife.
• 1:08:53
  Yes. Bomber is the guy with the shaved head and
• 1:08:57
  the leather jacket. And he told me the story
• 1:08:59
  behind this poster. I got to tell you, it's hilarious.
• 1:09:01
  Yeah, yeah. This is when he was in Santa Barbara.
• 1:09:07
  And on State Street, that's where all the punks
• 1:09:09
  hang out. This was the early 80s. And a photographer
• 1:09:15
  came up to him and his friends were like, hey,
• 1:09:17
  you guys want to make 20 bucks? And they're like,
• 1:09:20
  yeah, sure. What? And they said, come to this
• 1:09:22
  tomorrow. Meet me at this photography studio
• 1:09:25
  and I'll give you 20 bucks. Take your picture.
• 1:09:27
  And they're like, OK. So the next day they go
• 1:09:31
  and he shows up. He had been up all night and
• 1:09:35
  he was. wearing like filthy clothes that were
• 1:09:37
  really dirty like a white t -shirt that was stained
• 1:09:42
  and had like vomit on it and dirt and he shows
• 1:09:45
  up and they're like you don't look like a punk
• 1:09:47
  you look like a mental patient and you're like
• 1:09:50
  oh this is how i look So they had to borrow a
• 1:09:53
  jacket and a t -shirt for him to wear. They took
• 1:09:56
  that photo, paid him 20 bucks. And then years
• 1:09:58
  later, he sees it hanging up in the mall. I just
• 1:10:01
  thought that was a hilarious story because he
• 1:10:03
  was... So that's Bomber, you said? That is Bomber.
• 1:10:05
  Wow. These are some Santa Barbara punk scenesters.
• 1:10:09
  Anyway, he was a great guy. He saved my life.
• 1:10:12
  He let me squat with him. He fed me. He got me
• 1:10:15
  out the street. I got to stay at the RKL house
• 1:10:18
  for... I don't know how long it was, a few weeks.
• 1:10:22
  Eventually, I got a job and my ex -girlfriend
• 1:10:28
  had moved to San Francisco and I was able to
• 1:10:31
  rent a place with her. So I got off the street.
• 1:10:34
  I got a job. I played around in a couple of San
• 1:10:37
  Francisco bands, but I still stayed in contact
• 1:10:42
  with Todd. We still called each other and wrote
• 1:10:44
  each other letters and stuff. I cannot stress
• 1:10:47
  how bad San Francisco is. The music scene there
• 1:10:51
  was shit. The clubs are shit. The people are
• 1:10:55
  shit. They can all eat shit. You didn't even
• 1:11:01
  like playing Gilman Street. Fuck no. Fuck Gilman
• 1:11:04
  Street. Fuck all those places. Fuck all those
• 1:11:07
  fake punks. Like I said, the big band. When I
• 1:11:10
  was there, it was four non -blondes. Oh, my God.
• 1:11:12
  Give me a fucking break. They had one song, and
• 1:11:15
  it sucks. Anyway, so I kept in contact with Todd,
• 1:11:21
  and he was telling me, man, the Bakersfield music
• 1:11:23
  scene is thriving. There's a million clubs. There's
• 1:11:26
  a million bands. So I would take the Amtek train.
• 1:11:29
  I would come and hang out, and I'd go see bands
• 1:11:32
  with him, and it was. There was great bands.
• 1:11:34
  There was this band called Skunk, who later became
• 1:11:37
  Crawdaddy. who were awesome. And, uh, there was
• 1:11:42
  this country band that was, uh, called the Wichita's
• 1:11:46
  that were awesome. They were like, uh, there
• 1:11:50
  were more punk than country, but they were great.
• 1:11:51
  There was just tons of bands. Like everybody
• 1:11:54
  was in a band and there was million places to
• 1:11:57
  play. So I said, okay, I'm not doing anything
• 1:12:01
  in San Francisco. I hate San Francisco. I'm going
• 1:12:05
  to move back. Me and Todd were forming a new
• 1:12:08
  band. And so I moved back and we formed The Mutilators.
• 1:12:12
  It was a 50s style punk band because there was
• 1:12:18
  an LA punk band called The Gears and I love them.
• 1:12:21
  And they were 50s punk. They kind of looked rockabilly,
• 1:12:24
  but they played punk style 50s music. And that's
• 1:12:27
  what I wanted to emulate. And that's what we
• 1:12:29
  were. We recruited this guy named Daniel Arias,
• 1:12:32
  who was an awesome drummer. And we got a guy
• 1:12:35
  named Scott Graham, who was in a... heavy metal
• 1:12:38
  band called chaotic evil have you ever heard
• 1:12:41
  of them yeah okay he played i don't know much
• 1:12:43
  about him though okay uh he joined the band so
• 1:12:49
  we should talk about how there's two mutilators
• 1:12:51
  and the mutilators you were in is one that there's
• 1:12:55
  not really any recordings of that you could find
• 1:12:58
  online if you find one it's probably the new
• 1:13:00
  mutilators that was more rockabilly yeah right
• 1:13:02
  yeah i think the new mutilators he started out
• 1:13:06
  of spite Because that was my band. I came up
• 1:13:10
  with the name. I came up with the concept. The
• 1:13:12
  only thing I didn't do was write any of the songs.
• 1:13:15
  But the whole thing was my concept. The name
• 1:13:18
  The Mutilators I got because there was a group
• 1:13:23
  in New York. It was a group called Mutilators
• 1:13:26
  Anonymous. And it was a group of people that
• 1:13:28
  could not help cutting themselves. And it was
• 1:13:31
  like a self -help group, like, you know, Alcoholics
• 1:13:33
  Anonymous. It was called Mutilators Anonymous.
• 1:13:35
  Yeah. And so I thought, oh, that's a great band
• 1:13:39
  name. So, yeah, he moved to San Francisco. He
• 1:13:44
  embraced the rockabilly, psychabilly style, which
• 1:13:49
  I can't stand, to be honest. I hate. I hate music
• 1:13:56
  genres. This is going to sound stupid, but I
• 1:13:58
  hate music genres where you have to wear a certain
• 1:14:00
  uniform. Like you have to have a pump door. You
• 1:14:03
  have to have a leather jacket. You have to have
• 1:14:05
  a certain style of shoes. You have to have certain
• 1:14:06
  style of pants. You have to drive an old vintage
• 1:14:09
  car. You have to, you have to play a gratch.
• 1:14:12
  I just can't stand that. Our mutilators was,
• 1:14:16
  uh, punk and fifties. And it was just the mishmash
• 1:14:20
  of styles. There was country. There was rockabilly.
• 1:14:23
  There was, You know, and, uh, yeah, I would have,
• 1:14:30
  there's no way I'm going to be playing a standup
• 1:14:34
  bass with flames on it. Now that that stuff's
• 1:14:36
  stupid. I don't, I don't, I don't care for that.
• 1:14:39
  I mean, the original guys that in the fifties
• 1:14:41
  are awesome, but these fake happy days want to
• 1:14:45
  be straight cat, whatever the fuck you call them.
• 1:14:48
  Those guys suck. They're lame. They're stupid.
• 1:14:50
  I would have never been a part of that. Now you're
• 1:14:54
  going to say, but isn't punk rock uniform? No,
• 1:14:56
  absolutely is not. With the punk rock that I
• 1:15:01
  am is you just wear clothes from the thrift store.
• 1:15:05
  You don't wear Doc Martens that cost $120 or
• 1:15:10
  whatever. No, you just buy clothes from the thrift
• 1:15:12
  store. Hardcore, American hardcore. So you had
• 1:15:18
  a practice space and you shared it with Spike
• 1:15:20
  1000 and the King B's. Is that true? I don't
• 1:15:24
  know who the King Bees are, but yes, Spike 1000,
• 1:15:26
  yes. How did you find that? Seriously. This one
• 1:15:31
  was in the newspaper as well, just on a random
• 1:15:34
  article. Oh, okay. That mentioned an article
• 1:15:38
  about the King Bees, and it said, shared a practice
• 1:15:43
  base with Spike 1000 and the mutilators. Oh,
• 1:15:46
  yeah. I got a bunch of mutilators clippings I'll
• 1:15:50
  show you if you're interested. We did get a few
• 1:15:53
  reviews. Mutilators was a super chaotic band
• 1:15:58
  because of Todd, because he liked to make a spectacle.
• 1:16:06
  In ways, it was entertaining. In other ways,
• 1:16:09
  it was very exhausting. Like, you could not just
• 1:16:12
  go, like, hey, let's go to Burger King and get
• 1:16:15
  some, you know, food. It always turned into...
• 1:16:19
  We're getting chased out and people are trying
• 1:16:21
  to kill us because he was just a very chaotic
• 1:16:28
  person. So a lot of the mutilator shows turned
• 1:16:34
  into events, let's say. There was one night we
• 1:16:41
  played a club on California Avenue called John
• 1:16:44
  Bryant's where we got beat up on stage. The bouncers
• 1:16:49
  came up on stage and beat us up. What? Yeah.
• 1:16:57
  Yes. Why though? Because Todd decided to pick
• 1:17:04
  a fight with the audience. And it got out of
• 1:17:09
  hand and the bouncers came up and started beating
• 1:17:12
  him up. And I don't know how to fight, but I
• 1:17:14
  know how to pull people off of other people.
• 1:17:16
  So I went over there and I was trying to pull
• 1:17:18
  the bouncers off of him that were beating him
• 1:17:20
  up. And they started beating me up. So the drummer
• 1:17:23
  came over who could actually fight. He's since
• 1:17:26
  passed away. God bless him. Daniel Arias came
• 1:17:29
  over and started punching bouncers. And then
• 1:17:31
  audience member joined in and it just turned
• 1:17:35
  into a gigantic nightmare. But that was, I would
• 1:17:40
  say the original mutilators played probably about
• 1:17:43
  20 shows. Every single show, something happened
• 1:17:50
  where it was like, oh my God, I can't believe
• 1:17:56
  we did not get killed. The very last show we
• 1:18:03
  played, we broke up on stage. It was at Jerry's,
• 1:18:06
  which was just starting to have bands play there.
• 1:18:11
  Me and Todd had a disagreement over something
• 1:18:15
  on stage. And I, as a founding member, took it
• 1:18:21
  upon myself to break up the band on stage. I
• 1:18:23
  grabbed the mic and I yelled, you've seen us
• 1:18:25
  for the last time. And I smashed the mic and
• 1:18:27
  we broke up the band. Todd threw a hissy fit
• 1:18:33
  and in a week he moved to San Francisco, leaving
• 1:18:36
  me in Bakersfield. And that same night I joined
• 1:18:44
  Cradle of Thorns. That would have been 1994 -ish?
• 1:18:48
  1993. So the night the mutilators broke up on
• 1:18:52
  stage, that night I was drunk. I went out into
• 1:18:58
  the alley by... Jerry's Pizza, some friends that
• 1:19:04
  I was with saw the Cradle of Thorns guys, tried
• 1:19:07
  to start a fight with them, did not realize that
• 1:19:11
  the guys in Cradle of Thorns knew how to fight,
• 1:19:13
  immediately pussed out. And I went up and I said,
• 1:19:17
  hey, my band just broke up. Let me join your
• 1:19:19
  band. And they just kind of laughed. And then
• 1:19:22
  a week later they called me and they said, hey,
• 1:19:23
  were you serious? And I was like, yeah, what's
• 1:19:27
  up? And they said, well, our bass player is addicted
• 1:19:29
  to heroin. and we're looking for a new guy. And
• 1:19:32
  I was like, fuck yeah, sure, let's do it. So
• 1:19:36
  I joined Cradle of Thorns. So I was an unemployed
• 1:19:39
  bass player for about a week. In Cradle of Thorns,
• 1:19:43
  they're already on Triple X, right? And that's
• 1:19:47
  the same label as Jane's Addiction and LAPD,
• 1:19:51
  which became Korn, Dr. Dre, Social Distortion,
• 1:19:53
  all these people have been on Triple X. So it's...
• 1:19:58
  already successful and so how does that go for
• 1:20:01
  you okay this is where i'm going to step on some
• 1:20:06
  toes that's okay okay the cradle of thorns i
• 1:20:13
  joined okay when the mutilators were playing
• 1:20:16
  the big hot shit band in town was cradle of thorns
• 1:20:19
  because they were super popular and they just
• 1:20:23
  got signed to an indie label and they were hot
• 1:20:26
  shit And they played shows and they just pack
• 1:20:30
  them out. Yeah, we should say it's Ty Elam on
• 1:20:32
  vocals. Yes. David Feil on guitar. Chris Coles
• 1:20:36
  on drums. Yes. Who later was in Edema. Yes. And
• 1:20:39
  Rohan on the keyboards. And Tamara Slayton was
• 1:20:43
  the co -vocalist, the female vocalist. Yeah,
• 1:20:45
  that's right. Yes. And then who was on bass before
• 1:20:47
  you? There was a guy named Jay who was the original
• 1:20:51
  member. Very nice guy. He quit. uh i don't know
• 1:20:56
  the reason why and then they got they recruited
• 1:20:59
  that guy scat okay from la he was an la dude
• 1:21:04
  i was the third bass player of cradle of thorns
• 1:21:06
  okay so cradle of thorns were the hot shit band
• 1:21:11
  when the mutilators were playing i knew of them
• 1:21:13
  when they first started they started in like
• 1:21:16
  86 or 87 and they were a way different band they
• 1:21:19
  were like acoustic guitar kind of rem style gothy
• 1:21:25
  kind of, uh, I don't know what style you call
• 1:21:28
  it. I used to call it college rock. They, they
• 1:21:31
  continued playing and their, their sound evolved
• 1:21:33
  to get harder and harder and harder. And I saw
• 1:21:36
  them play in, uh, Santa Clarita at a club called
• 1:21:40
  one step beyond. And I was really impressed because
• 1:21:43
  there were like nine inch nails with a little
• 1:21:45
  bit of Bauhaus and I thought they were awesome.
• 1:21:49
  I was really impressed. But that's when I was
• 1:21:52
  still living in San Francisco. I thought they
• 1:21:54
  were great. Then I moved back to Bakersfield.
• 1:21:57
  And of course, I'm in a rival band and they're
• 1:21:59
  the hot shit band. So of course, we hated them.
• 1:22:02
  Not because they were a shitty band or they were
• 1:22:04
  bad people. It's just because we were jealous
• 1:22:06
  and they were getting all the attention. So we
• 1:22:09
  were kind of like, ah, fuck those guys, you know,
• 1:22:12
  when we'd see them or whatever. It was pure jealousy.
• 1:22:15
  They never did anything to us. Anyway, so I joined
• 1:22:19
  the band. they were all very cool. I was under
• 1:22:28
  the impression we were still going to be the
• 1:22:30
  Bauhaus meets Nine Inch Nails style band, which
• 1:22:33
  I was totally into, which I think is cool. But
• 1:22:37
  it seems they wanted, Ty started really getting
• 1:22:42
  into hip hop. He was like, that was the direction
• 1:22:49
  he wanted to go. And so once I joined the band,
• 1:22:54
  the band started evolving into this medley rap
• 1:22:59
  kind of band. It was time to record an album,
• 1:23:04
  Triple X. Other labels had interest in us. Like
• 1:23:08
  they'd come see us and they'd be like, hey man,
• 1:23:10
  we dig your stuff. And Triple X was like, you
• 1:23:14
  have to be bought out of your contract because
• 1:23:17
  they had a contract. Yeah. And the label was
• 1:23:21
  like, no, thanks. Not interested. They gave us
• 1:23:25
  five grand to record a new album. Triple X did.
• 1:23:29
  Five grand for 1995 or whatever. That's the equivalent
• 1:23:35
  of 20 grand, I guess, or whatever. So they wanted
• 1:23:39
  us. They had a producer picked out for us. His
• 1:23:42
  name's Bruce Duff. He was in 45 Grave. He's really
• 1:23:45
  cool. He wanted to produce us. But we said, no,
• 1:23:50
  we're going to produce it ourselves. We took
• 1:23:52
  the $5 ,000, took $4 ,000 of it, and bought a
• 1:23:57
  van with it, and spent $1 ,000 recording the
• 1:24:00
  album, producing it ourselves, which was a mistake.
• 1:24:04
  Because a producer, a good producer would say,
• 1:24:07
  okay, this song's okay. Just shorten this part.
• 1:24:11
  Make this part longer. This song sucks. Don't
• 1:24:14
  record this one. This song's good, but you need
• 1:24:16
  to make it slower, faster, this, that. That's
• 1:24:19
  what a producer would do. Since we're producing
• 1:24:21
  it ourselves, everything's great. And so we recorded
• 1:24:26
  it all for $1 ,000 at Pig Studios, and I haven't
• 1:24:32
  listened to it since it was recorded. The last
• 1:24:34
  time I heard it was when we played it back after
• 1:24:39
  recording it, and that was the last time I heard
• 1:24:41
  it. There's nuggets of good stuff on it that
• 1:24:45
  could have been really good, but... mold it shape
• 1:24:50
  it but we didn't what are you gonna do so did
• 1:24:56
  they still have uh crazy live shows at that time
• 1:24:59
  uh before i joined the band i guess they were
• 1:25:02
  very theatric where uh theatrical i mean where
• 1:25:06
  uh ty would bring out props for every single
• 1:25:09
  song when i saw them in clarita san clarita uh
• 1:25:14
  he did have props and stuff I thought it was
• 1:25:17
  funny. I thought it was cool. Like everyone,
• 1:25:20
  we were banned from, well, before I was in the
• 1:25:24
  band, they were banned from Whiskey A Go -Go
• 1:25:26
  because he, he brought, he went to a bait shop
• 1:25:31
  and bought a, brought a bunch of crickets and
• 1:25:35
  let them loose in the audience. And they had,
• 1:25:38
  they had crickets in, in the Whiskey A Go -Go
• 1:25:41
  for months. So they were banned. But, We eventually,
• 1:25:47
  they lifted the band and we got to play the whiskey.
• 1:25:50
  So I was very excited to play the whiskey at
• 1:25:53
  Go Go Withems. I'm grateful for my time in Cradle
• 1:25:56
  Thorns because I got to play a lot of huge shows.
• 1:25:59
  I got to tour the country five times or more.
• 1:26:05
  And I met cool people and it was fun. So I'm
• 1:26:11
  very grateful for my two and a half years that
• 1:26:13
  I spent in Cradle Thorns. And then how did that
• 1:26:16
  end? They made Videodrome, right? And you left?
• 1:26:22
  They... I left the band because it was time for
• 1:26:33
  me to go. I was five years older than everybody
• 1:26:39
  in the band. So I was... the guy in the band
• 1:26:46
  that was like you guys come on grow up you know
• 1:26:51
  what i mean they were still into partying and
• 1:26:53
  i was over that shit i was the guy that after
• 1:26:56
  every show just wanted to go straight to the
• 1:26:58
  hotel so i could go to sleep um but they wanted
• 1:27:02
  a party and you know whatever they're they were
• 1:27:05
  younger um i quit i was pushing 30 i was like
• 1:27:10
  29 or something and uh it was time for me to
• 1:27:13
  go After I quit, they all moved to Huntington
• 1:27:17
  Beach and they got signed to Elementary Records,
• 1:27:23
  a subsidiary. Is that the word? Subsidiary. Subsidiary
• 1:27:29
  of Reprise Records. And I guess the label told
• 1:27:36
  them to change their name because there was another
• 1:27:38
  band called Cradle of Filth. So they changed
• 1:27:40
  their name. The label made them. They decided
• 1:27:46
  to give the band an image, so they made the guys
• 1:27:50
  in the band wear red jumpsuits and gave them
• 1:27:53
  all funny haircuts. I never heard the record.
• 1:28:01
  I think they got played on Total Request Live
• 1:28:05
  on MTV once, but I never heard the record, so
• 1:28:09
  I can't tell you if it's good or it's bad. But
• 1:28:12
  I think they broke up after that album. I mean,
• 1:28:14
  I don't talk to those guys. I don't know what
• 1:28:16
  happened to them. You would have to ask Ty or
• 1:28:18
  one of those guys what happened. All right. So
• 1:28:21
  after you leave, it's 1997. Talk to me about
• 1:28:26
  Spackletone Records. Okay. Spackletone Records.
• 1:28:33
  It's so easy to have a record label. All you
• 1:28:36
  have to do is tell your friends, I want to start
• 1:28:38
  a record label. And then they just go ahead and
• 1:28:41
  they put your name on the record label. That's
• 1:28:43
  all there is to it. Easy does it. Nice. Easy
• 1:28:46
  does it. I did absolutely nothing. I just told
• 1:28:49
  some friends, hey, I want to start a record label
• 1:28:52
  and call it Spackleton. And they were like, oh,
• 1:28:53
  that's great. And so they just put that name
• 1:28:56
  on their records. There's a Wichita's record.
• 1:28:59
  There's a Brian Jones was murdered record. And
• 1:29:02
  there's another band, I think, called the Noble
• 1:29:06
  Losers, maybe, that has. Spackleton Records.
• 1:29:10
  I'm only the namesake. That's it. But you played
• 1:29:14
  on that Brian Jones was murdered record, right?
• 1:29:17
  Yes. I, me and a guy named Kenny Mount. I'm on
• 1:29:21
  bass, Kenny Mount on drums and Charles McNeil
• 1:29:23
  on guitar and vocals. We did not practice. He
• 1:29:27
  just said, will you guys be on this record? We
• 1:29:29
  showed up and recorded it without hearing, without
• 1:29:32
  practicing the songs. We just went straight into
• 1:29:35
  it. And you can tell if you listen to the record.
• 1:29:38
  Like my bass lines, I am just playing the root
• 1:29:41
  note because I did not know the songs. I haven't
• 1:29:44
  heard it. What is Slumlord Studios that's on
• 1:29:48
  the back of that record? Do you know? Oh, that
• 1:29:52
  is, there's a guy, I don't know if he's still
• 1:29:56
  around. His name is Pipkin, Scott Pipkin. He
• 1:30:00
  owned a building on Chester Avenue. He swore
• 1:30:04
  that he was going to turn it into a nightclub
• 1:30:06
  and have bands play. It never opened, but he
• 1:30:09
  still owned the building and he let bands practice
• 1:30:12
  there. And I don't know if he called it Slumlord
• 1:30:17
  Studios or we called it Slumlord Studios, but
• 1:30:20
  that was Scott Pipkin's building on Chester Avenue.
• 1:30:23
  And yeah, it was just a place where bands played.
• 1:30:27
  And I'm sure we just had a four -track recorder
• 1:30:29
  in there and just did like that. Another band
• 1:30:33
  you were playing in was the Darvasets, right?
• 1:30:35
  Yes. Tell me about them. There's not much to
• 1:30:38
  tell. I quit Cradle of Thorns. I decided I needed
• 1:30:45
  to be in a band where I wrote the songs and sang
• 1:30:47
  and played guitar because I like playing guitar
• 1:30:51
  more than bass. There is a guy named Joey Witt
• 1:30:54
  who owned a clothing store downtown named Outer
• 1:30:57
  Limits. And we went to junior high together.
• 1:31:00
  And he was one of the three people that went
• 1:31:02
  to my junior high that was not mean to me. And
• 1:31:06
  so I'd always go in there and we'd talk and hang
• 1:31:08
  out. And he's very cool. And he was into punk
• 1:31:11
  rock. And I convinced him to play in my band.
• 1:31:14
  We practiced at his store, Outer Limits. We originally
• 1:31:18
  were called the Garbage Man. And then we played
• 1:31:21
  Jerry's a bunch of times. And then we played
• 1:31:23
  as the Darvasets. We had a drummer named Jason
• 1:31:26
  who was... a very super talented guy. We got
• 1:31:29
  to know Nate Berg, and every time, since we were
• 1:31:32
  old punks, every time an old punk band came into
• 1:31:36
  town, he would always call me and ask us to open.
• 1:31:40
  And our gimmick was, besides never asking Nate
• 1:31:45
  for any money, he never paid us, but our gimmick
• 1:31:47
  was, we, this is a trick I learned from a band
• 1:31:53
  in San Francisco called The Dwarves. Our gimmick
• 1:31:57
  was we would play for 15 minutes and then get
• 1:32:02
  off the stage, thus taking all the energy with
• 1:32:06
  us out of the room. Like when we'd open for a
• 1:32:09
  band, they'd expect the opening band, I mean
• 1:32:12
  the headlining band would expect us to play,
• 1:32:14
  you know, 30 minutes, 45 minutes, whatever. So
• 1:32:17
  they would just be relaxing, doing whatever.
• 1:32:20
  we'd go on we would play five songs and then
• 1:32:24
  fuck you good night and then we'd leave and they're
• 1:32:27
  like oh shit they're done and so they would scramble
• 1:32:30
  to try to get their shit together to get back
• 1:32:32
  to get on stage to play but it we have sucked
• 1:32:36
  the energy out of the room because now they're
• 1:32:40
  struggling to set up all their equipment and
• 1:32:43
  get ready to play and it takes longer than they
• 1:32:45
  expected because they were relaxing and we did
• 1:32:48
  that every single show We would never play more
• 1:32:51
  than 15 minutes. And we got to open for a bunch
• 1:32:55
  of bands. We opened for Fear. We opened for the
• 1:32:59
  Dickies. We opened for DOA. All the cool 80s
• 1:33:03
  bands that were on the reunion tours of the late
• 1:33:09
  90s, we got to open for. And I would always take
• 1:33:13
  my records and get them signed. And that was
• 1:33:16
  very awesome. Nate. Let us open for Didi Ramon.
• 1:33:20
  And that was a huge thrill for me because Didi
• 1:33:23
  Ramon is one of my many idols and I got to meet
• 1:33:26
  him and he autographed my bass and, uh, it was
• 1:33:30
  the highlight of my life. And within six months
• 1:33:34
  he had died. So that was very lucky and very
• 1:33:40
  cool that I got to meet one of probably the heart
• 1:33:43
  and soul of punk rock is Didi Ramon. He is the
• 1:33:46
  punk. And I got to meet him and he got to sign
• 1:33:49
  my bass. So I was very excited about that. So
• 1:33:52
  I owe Nate a lot for allowing us to do that.
• 1:33:58
  You were also in a band called the Wichita's
• 1:34:01
  who even opened for Willie Nelson. Yes. The Wichita's
• 1:34:04
  are. People call them country, but they're not
• 1:34:08
  really country. They're more like country in...
• 1:34:11
  They were older dudes. I was younger, but I've
• 1:34:14
  known them forever. The singer Olin, I have literally
• 1:34:17
  known since I was in the seventh grade because
• 1:34:19
  he used to date my sister. He was like a cool
• 1:34:21
  rocker dude. It was a country -ish band, but
• 1:34:29
  they played loud and they played fast and...
• 1:34:34
  Their songs are awesome. They kind of sound like
• 1:34:37
  Rockpile. I don't know if you're familiar with
• 1:34:39
  Dave Edmonds, Nick Lowe, Rockpile. Kind of like
• 1:34:43
  a early 80s power pop. They're like power pop
• 1:34:46
  country, but they're really cool. They were a
• 1:34:50
  great band. Their bass player left, and I joined
• 1:34:54
  that band. And I played with them for two and
• 1:35:00
  a half years. They got to open up for a lot of
• 1:35:07
  legendary people. They opened for Johnny Cash.
• 1:35:10
  They opened for Los Lobos. They opened for Buck
• 1:35:16
  Owens and Merle Haggard in 1995 at the fairgrounds.
• 1:35:20
  That's like the two biggest country Bakersfield
• 1:35:23
  names. Unfortunately, that was before my time,
• 1:35:25
  but I did get to play with Willie Nelson and
• 1:35:28
  it was really twice. We played with Willie Nelson
• 1:35:30
  twice. Wow. one time, I think, I believe it was
• 1:35:36
  at the Fox. We're opening for Willie Nelson and
• 1:35:39
  we're playing and the place is packed. And I
• 1:35:42
  look over to the side of the stage and Willie
• 1:35:44
  Nelson is watching us leaning on an amp. And
• 1:35:47
  that was a, that was very intimidating and cool.
• 1:35:50
  So he actually stood there and watched us play,
• 1:35:54
  which I don't expect a lot of people to do. So
• 1:35:58
  yeah, they, they, they were great, but. I left.
• 1:36:04
  It seems like I joined bands. Their bass player
• 1:36:07
  leaves. So I joined the band and then I stick
• 1:36:09
  around for under three years and then I leave.
• 1:36:13
  I think two and a half years is my limit for
• 1:36:15
  every band. But it was fun. We played a lot of
• 1:36:19
  big shows and occasionally we'll have reunions
• 1:36:22
  and we'll play and it's fun. That's cool. Yeah.
• 1:36:26
  After the Wichitas and the Darvasets. Then what
• 1:36:30
  are you doing with music? Nothing. I think I
• 1:36:36
  aged out. I still, the Dharma sets, we had a,
• 1:36:42
  we played probably 40 shows. We did a couple
• 1:36:48
  of recordings. I didn't do anything with it.
• 1:36:51
  We played a bunch of great shows. We had a lot
• 1:36:54
  of fun. But one night. We just had a horrible
• 1:36:58
  show. We played at Jerry's. The amp I took to
• 1:37:03
  the show, I had this really cool vintage amp.
• 1:37:06
  And when I got to Jerry's and set it up, it didn't
• 1:37:10
  work. So I was panicking. I was like, Nate, we're
• 1:37:13
  about to go on. My amp doesn't work. And he said,
• 1:37:15
  oh, I have an amp. So he went to the back of
• 1:37:18
  Jerry's like a closet or something. And he brought
• 1:37:21
  out this little teeny tiny. Like, seriously,
• 1:37:25
  like an 8 -inch speaker, like a little crate
• 1:37:28
  or a PV amp. He's like, you can use this. I'll
• 1:37:30
  put a mic on it. And I was like, oh, no. And
• 1:37:33
  then the drummer was like, oh, I can't find my
• 1:37:36
  snare stand. So he used a folding chair for his
• 1:37:41
  snare, and it just looked pathetic. And I was
• 1:37:45
  like, this isn't fun anymore. And we just had.
• 1:37:48
  That night, we were just like, do you guys want
• 1:37:50
  to still do this? And everyone was like, nah,
• 1:37:52
  I think we're done. So the Darvish Test broke
• 1:37:55
  up that night. Since then, I've played a few
• 1:37:58
  times with other bands, but nothing really interesting.
• 1:38:04
  I have not played for a long time, but I still
• 1:38:07
  crave it. I would love. I just think I'm too
• 1:38:12
  old. All the guys my age want to play country.
• 1:38:16
  I don't want to play country. I want to play
• 1:38:18
  hardcore punk. And I can't find guys my age that
• 1:38:22
  want to play that. I'm 59 years old. There's
• 1:38:26
  no 59 -year -old punk rockers. They've all died
• 1:38:29
  or they've moved on with their lives. I can't
• 1:38:32
  move on. I still want to play. I would love to
• 1:38:37
  find just some guys to. Play punk rock, jam with
• 1:38:40
  it. It doesn't even matter if we play out. I
• 1:38:43
  just want to play. I miss it so much. It's just,
• 1:38:46
  I don't know, the smell of a tube amp and the
• 1:38:52
  electrical shock you get from a guitar that's
• 1:38:55
  not grounded. I miss all that stuff. But there's
• 1:38:59
  nobody that wants to play anymore. If you're
• 1:39:03
  out there, find me and let's play in a band if
• 1:39:08
  you're old. Do you still play, though, by yourself
• 1:39:10
  at home? It's no fun to play by yourself. I have
• 1:39:15
  guitars and amps and stuff, and sometimes I'll
• 1:39:18
  play, but it's just not fun doing it by yourself,
• 1:39:21
  playing along with YouTube videos. It would take
• 1:39:24
  me a while to get my chops back, but no, I don't
• 1:39:26
  really play, but I want to. Consider this an
• 1:39:29
  ad, a personal's ad, looking for old punk rock
• 1:39:34
  guys to play punk rock with. I'm your guy. We
• 1:39:39
  should talk about what happened to Big Jed, what
• 1:39:42
  happened to Todd Thompson. Yeah, Todd moved to
• 1:39:45
  San Francisco. He had the San Franciscan Mutilators,
• 1:39:47
  and they were very popular and successful, and
• 1:39:50
  they played a lot of huge shows, and they were
• 1:39:52
  respected and all that, and they toured Europe,
• 1:39:56
  and they put out some records, and they were
• 1:40:00
  very well -known. We had not been speaking at
• 1:40:04
  this time because I was in a cradle of thorns
• 1:40:06
  and I was doing my thing. I was touring the country
• 1:40:08
  and stuff. And it was like we were married and
• 1:40:15
  got divorced and we just didn't want anything
• 1:40:16
  to do with each other. But we both secretly were
• 1:40:20
  still in love with each other. And then the mutilators
• 1:40:27
  were playing Jerry's one night and I said, I'm
• 1:40:32
  going to go down there and break the ice. And
• 1:40:34
  so I waited out in front of Jerry's. And when
• 1:40:37
  he pulled up, he knew somehow he knew I was going
• 1:40:39
  to be there. He just came up and we just hugged
• 1:40:41
  and we started talking and we just, we just became
• 1:40:48
  best friends again that night. And from that
• 1:40:51
  point on, we were talking on the phone every
• 1:40:54
  day or emailing each other every day and just
• 1:40:57
  in constant contact. I would go to San Francisco
• 1:41:01
  and visit him and he'd, he'd come to Bakersfield
• 1:41:03
  and visit. And, um, so I think he was getting
• 1:41:05
  burned out of, uh, San Francisco and also his
• 1:41:08
  band. Um, because although they were popular
• 1:41:12
  and they were putting out music and stuff, uh,
• 1:41:14
  there was a very popular Danish psychobilly band
• 1:41:17
  called the necromanics that wanted them to go
• 1:41:20
  on tour in Europe. And apparently I've never
• 1:41:22
  toured Europe, but it's awful to tour Europe
• 1:41:26
  because They treat Americans like shit, and you
• 1:41:29
  play clubs that are 600 years old, and they have
• 1:41:33
  no heat, and they have no air conditioning, and
• 1:41:36
  I don't know. It sounds glamorous to tour Europe,
• 1:41:41
  but I guess the reality is it's terrible. And
• 1:41:44
  he didn't want to do it, and he felt pressured.
• 1:41:47
  His band wanted to do it. The Necromantics or
• 1:41:51
  whatever they were called wanted him to do it,
• 1:41:53
  and he didn't want to. So he told me he was going
• 1:41:56
  to move back to Bakersfield. And I was like,
• 1:41:59
  no, why would you do that? And he's like, because
• 1:42:01
  I just need to come back home. And I tried and
• 1:42:06
  I tried to talk him out of it. I said, no, you're
• 1:42:08
  doing so good there. He had a very pretty girlfriend
• 1:42:10
  he was with. Like I said, he had a good job.
• 1:42:14
  He was working for Home Depot and he was making
• 1:42:16
  a lot of money. Well, you know, he's making good
• 1:42:21
  money for San Francisco. Uh, San Francisco is
• 1:42:24
  the most expensive place in the world. And, uh,
• 1:42:26
  if you can, you know, maintain a place to stay
• 1:42:30
  and have a job and still, you know, have money,
• 1:42:33
  then you're, uh, you're doing good. Anyway, he
• 1:42:36
  wanted to move back. I told him not to. And,
• 1:42:39
  uh, I feel guilty because I think he wanted to
• 1:42:42
  move back just to hang out with me. So he did
• 1:42:45
  move out. He, he did move back and it was great.
• 1:42:49
  He got a place. Actually had enough money saved
• 1:42:54
  for where he bought this house in Oildale. And
• 1:42:58
  he bought it for $25 ,000. And it was like a
• 1:43:01
  old crack house. But even the real estate agent
• 1:43:06
  was like, don't buy this house. Don't buy this
• 1:43:08
  house. Because it was falling apart. And it was
• 1:43:10
  on Decatur Street. And it was a horrible street.
• 1:43:15
  And he bought it. He paid cash for this house.
• 1:43:18
  Because he said he never wanted to pay rent again.
• 1:43:21
  And so he fixed up this house and I helped him
• 1:43:25
  and he really restored it and it was really looking
• 1:43:30
  nice. He did a lot of work to it. It was bad,
• 1:43:34
  the house, but he fixed it up because he had
• 1:43:38
  some knowledge because he'd been working at Home
• 1:43:40
  Depot for 20 years. So he knew, you know, kind
• 1:43:43
  of construction. Some handyman experience. Yeah,
• 1:43:46
  handyman. Yeah, exactly. handyman knowledge so
• 1:43:48
  he was fixing up this house and it was actually
• 1:43:51
  turning out nice he really turned it around the
• 1:43:53
  thing we bonded most over is that we both were
• 1:43:58
  sufferers of chronic depression and we always
• 1:44:03
  talked about our depression and our our mental
• 1:44:05
  issues and that's why we were so close because
• 1:44:08
  we had a lot of the same uh problems and we were
• 1:44:12
  both played each other's psychiatrists and therapists
• 1:44:16
  you know trying to work out our shit. And we
• 1:44:23
  had talked about trying medication. And so I
• 1:44:30
  have good insurance through my work. So I tried
• 1:44:35
  to get on some antidepressants. They did absolutely
• 1:44:38
  nothing for me. I tried them for like six months.
• 1:44:41
  I still felt shitty all the time. So I stopped
• 1:44:45
  taking it. And I was like, that sucks. That doesn't
• 1:44:47
  work for me. I went and saw a therapist. Talk
• 1:44:50
  therapy doesn't work for me. Medication doesn't
• 1:44:52
  work for me. So I was just like, it's just something
• 1:44:56
  I got to deal with. So it's fine. Todd, on the
• 1:44:59
  other hand, wanted to try medication, but he
• 1:45:01
  did not have insurance. So he went back to San
• 1:45:06
  Francisco and got some real shady kind of...
• 1:45:13
  pay as you go insurance plan. And he went and
• 1:45:17
  saw this doctor that over prescribed him, uh,
• 1:45:21
  medication. Like he was taking a combination
• 1:45:25
  of like this and that and that. And you know,
• 1:45:32
  and it was making him kind of manic. Like when
• 1:45:35
  I talked to him, he, he would, I could tell he
• 1:45:38
  was medicated because he was like talking a mile
• 1:45:40
  a minute, like real hyper. And I was trying to
• 1:45:46
  tell him, hey, man, you need to cut back or you
• 1:45:48
  need to see a real doctor because this is not
• 1:45:55
  helping you. But he was like, no, I feel great.
• 1:45:58
  And long story short, he was having seizures.
• 1:46:06
  I found this later from his girlfriend that he
• 1:46:08
  had at the time. He was having seizures. And
• 1:46:13
  he didn't tell me about it. And this is what
• 1:46:17
  happened. One day I was getting ready for work
• 1:46:19
  and there was a knock at my door at 6 a .m. And
• 1:46:22
  it was his girlfriend who I did not like. She
• 1:46:25
  was very weird. And she was like, Todd died.
• 1:46:31
  And I was just like floored. I didn't know what
• 1:46:35
  she was talking about. And she explained that.
• 1:46:38
  She had been trying to get a hold of him, and
• 1:46:39
  she couldn't reach him, so she went over to the
• 1:46:42
  house. He wasn't answering the door, so she peeked
• 1:46:44
  through his bathroom window. I guess she stood
• 1:46:48
  on something and peeked through the window, and
• 1:46:50
  she saw him dead in his bathroom on the floor.
• 1:46:53
  So apparently he had another seizure, and it
• 1:46:55
  killed him. And it's weird because he had just
• 1:46:59
  turned 50, and his dad died at 50, and he was
• 1:47:02
  telling me, I'm going to die at 50 because my
• 1:47:05
  dad died at 50, and I was like. You're stupid.
• 1:47:07
  You're not going to die. You're healthy as a
• 1:47:09
  horse. You're fine. And he died at 50. What sucks
• 1:47:13
  is I could not handle it. I flipped out his house
• 1:47:21
  where he had all of his stuff, his guitars, his
• 1:47:25
  amps, all his stuff that he had been collecting,
• 1:47:29
  the house that he took a lot of pride in. All
• 1:47:33
  his master tapes of all his recordings, all his
• 1:47:36
  memories, all his photos was left at his house
• 1:47:39
  in Oildale. Word got around that the guy that
• 1:47:42
  lived in the blue house on Decatur Street died.
• 1:47:46
  So people kicked in the door and started stealing
• 1:47:49
  his stuff. One of my friends who worked at Front
• 1:47:53
  Porch at the time told me, hey, there's a guy
• 1:47:55
  coming in here trying to sell Todd's guitars.
• 1:47:57
  He's wearing Todd's clothes. He sent me a picture
• 1:48:00
  of it. I was like. I don't know what to do. You
• 1:48:03
  know, what do you want me to do? I can't do anything
• 1:48:05
  about this. If I would have had my wits about
• 1:48:09
  me, I would have gone over to the house. I would
• 1:48:10
  have boarded it up. I would have tried to contact
• 1:48:12
  Todd's family who he was estranged from and said,
• 1:48:15
  Hey, you need to get over to Todd's and barricade
• 1:48:18
  this house or put all this stuff in storage or
• 1:48:19
  do something. But I just couldn't because I was
• 1:48:22
  so devastated by his death. I just shut down.
• 1:48:25
  So people started looting his house, took all
• 1:48:27
  of his stuff, all of his guitars, all this, I
• 1:48:29
  don't know where his tapes went. They probably
• 1:48:31
  ended up in the garbage or something. And this
• 1:48:35
  is the first time I've been able to talk about
• 1:48:37
  it since it happened. This happened probably
• 1:48:39
  in 2016 or 17 and I couldn't even talk about
• 1:48:43
  it. This is the first time I've ever been, I've
• 1:48:46
  ever not talked about it. What was I supposed
• 1:48:50
  to do? I didn't know what to do. I mean, So I
• 1:48:56
  lost my best friend in the world and I didn't
• 1:49:01
  know what to do. I was, what do you do? I didn't
• 1:49:05
  want to see his stuff. I didn't want to go over
• 1:49:08
  there and take his stuff. So that's the sad ending
• 1:49:13
  of Todd Thompson, Rory Todd Thompson. That's
• 1:49:16
  the sad death of Rory Todd Thompson. All I've
• 1:49:19
  got is memories and a few cassette tapes of his
• 1:49:22
  music. The end. Well, I know both of you are
• 1:49:27
  very close and thanks for sharing that because
• 1:49:29
  I know it's not easy. Yeah, it's not easy at
• 1:49:32
  all. Looking back, what was your top show with
• 1:49:36
  Big Jed that's the most memorable? I remember
• 1:49:40
  we played Chicago. I just remember there was
• 1:49:44
  a point when we were on stage. I don't know who
• 1:49:47
  we played with, just some local Chicago bands.
• 1:49:50
  I just remember there was a point when we were
• 1:49:52
  playing. And I guess the sound was just really
• 1:49:56
  good. The mix was really good. And I just remember
• 1:49:59
  in that moment just thinking, man, this sounds
• 1:50:02
  good. And I just remember being really proud.
• 1:50:08
  Like just it sounded like a big wall of sound
• 1:50:13
  and just everything was meshing. And it was just
• 1:50:16
  like, man, this sounds really, really good. That's
• 1:50:20
  a fond memory I have. But as far as like, uh,
• 1:50:27
  like interesting, I don't know. I'm sure there
• 1:50:35
  is like a show that like stands out, but I'm,
• 1:50:41
  I'm blanking at the moment. No worries. I mean,
• 1:50:43
  we talked about the San Francisco show. That's
• 1:50:45
  definitely a, yeah. One of the craziest ones.
• 1:50:48
  Yeah. Getting beat up on stage, uh, with the
• 1:50:50
  mutilators was. Cool. Usually to finish off the
• 1:50:56
  show, we talk about what local bands that you're
• 1:51:00
  interested in that are current. But since you
• 1:51:04
  haven't been in the scene for a little bit, I'm
• 1:51:06
  going to ask you what bands from the past from
• 1:51:08
  Bakersfield do you want people to check out?
• 1:51:10
  Well, you already mentioned the Lizards. The
• 1:51:12
  Lizards are outstanding. From 1981, they put
• 1:51:16
  out a record. uh it's online both sides are great
• 1:51:20
  one's uh straight up hardcore punk rock the other
• 1:51:24
  side's kind of power poppy and both songs are
• 1:51:27
  great and it still holds up and it's awesome
• 1:51:31
  there's another band they never recorded but
• 1:51:33
  they were pioneers of punk rock in bakersfield
• 1:51:38
  they were on par musically with the germs or
• 1:51:42
  middle class or black flag they were called teen
• 1:51:44
  suicide They only recorded like fragments of
• 1:51:50
  songs, unfortunately, because the one time they
• 1:51:53
  recorded, they didn't know how to work the tape
• 1:51:56
  machine. So there's like a minute and a half
• 1:52:00
  of one song and there's like 45 seconds of another
• 1:52:04
  song. But it is so awesome and brutal and hardcore.
• 1:52:09
  And they were called Teen Suicide and they recorded
• 1:52:13
  this in 1980. And it's just mind blowing. I'm
• 1:52:16
  sure it's available online. There's a live video
• 1:52:18
  of them playing at BC, which is terrible, but
• 1:52:25
  it is an interesting artifact because it's so
• 1:52:29
  chaotic and terrible. And for being in Bakersfield,
• 1:52:33
  playing that style of music and looking the way
• 1:52:36
  they did is just mind -blowing. There's a...
• 1:52:41
  A shot of the audience where you can see people
• 1:52:43
  in the audience and it's all Farrah Fawcett hairdos
• 1:52:46
  and cowboy hats and these guys are just playing
• 1:52:49
  balls out punk rock. It's a treat. So hunt that
• 1:52:54
  down. Teen suicide. Before we leave, I would
• 1:52:58
  just like to give a shout out to Ronald Ramirez
• 1:53:02
  of Going Underground Records for... consistently
• 1:53:06
  keeping a awesome record store open for over
• 1:53:09
  20 years and not letting the mafia in blue shutting
• 1:53:13
  him down. That is quite an achievement. So he
• 1:53:17
  needs credit. And also I'd like to say the two
• 1:53:22
  guys that run Savage Radio, Jake Chavez and Greg
• 1:53:26
  Looney, are awesome. They have an independent
• 1:53:29
  radio station that's been consistently on for
• 1:53:32
  years now. They have no commercials and they
• 1:53:35
  play independent music and they really need to
• 1:53:38
  be celebrated. So I just want to say check them
• 1:53:42
  out because they're awesome. Savage Radio. 103
• 1:53:45
  point whatever. You can find it. Just find it.
• 1:53:50
  That's it. Everybody else eat shit. With romance
• 1:54:07
  preservation Enjoy the damn scene, all that infest
• 1:54:13
  Now what we need, man of fiction, wanderlust,
• 1:54:16
  privilege And all this, the only more that we
• 1:54:18
  can trust The risk is bigger, not even bigger,
• 1:54:21
  gotta put the cap on to the trigger Let's get
• 1:54:23
  him before he gets us Let's get him before he
• 1:54:27
  gets us