Latest / DISGRACELAND / Pentagram: Demons, Curses, and Doom

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Pentagram: Demons, Curses, and Doom · DISGRACELAND

0:00
Speaker 1: Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. This is a
0:15
Speaker 1: story about inversion, about what happens when you take something ancient,
0:20
Speaker 1: something sacred, and you turn it upside down. It's about
0:25
Speaker 1: the sound of doom echoing from the basement of a
0:28
Speaker 1: suburban Virginia home. It's about mystery tapes and cheap pawnshop stereos,
0:34
Speaker 1: about the thin line between myth and memory. It's a
0:38
Speaker 1: story about drugs, demons, and deals that may or may
0:43
Speaker 1: not have ever gone down. And it's also a story
0:46
Speaker 1: about a curse, one which may have been cast the
0:49
Speaker 1: moment a certain name was spoken out loud. That name
0:55
Speaker 1: was Pentagram, a band that was supposed to be louder
0:59
Speaker 1: and heavier than anything else, but instead became a whisper
1:03
Speaker 1: on a worn out cassette. Their music passed from one
1:07
Speaker 1: true believer to the next great music, unlike that music
1:12
Speaker 1: I played for you at the top of the show.
1:14
Speaker 1: That wasn't great music. That was a preset loop for
1:17
Speaker 1: my melotron called Haunted Star MK two. I played you
1:23
Speaker 1: that loop because I can't afford the rights to Maggie
1:26
Speaker 1: May by Rod Stewart, And why would I play you
1:29
Speaker 1: that specific slice of feels like the first time cheese?
1:33
Speaker 1: Could I afford it? Because that was the number one
1:37
Speaker 1: song in America on Halloween nineteen seventy one, And that
1:42
Speaker 1: was the day that Bobby Leebling decided to form a
1:44
Speaker 1: band that he would call Pentagram and unknowingly unleasha curse
1:49
Speaker 1: he could never shake. On this episode Doo Demons, drugs, curses,
1:57
Speaker 1: Bobby leibling and the greatest band that never won was Pentagram.
2:02
Speaker 1: I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgraceland. The guy in
2:29
Speaker 1: the back of the pawn shop working on the stereo equipment.
2:33
Speaker 1: Was he a really young looking old dude or a
2:35
Speaker 1: really old looking young dude? Was he white, black, Latino Israeli?
2:42
Speaker 1: Was he either perpetually tanned or just plain filthy? And
2:46
Speaker 1: what was with the perm the Grecian yearning, the sinewy
2:50
Speaker 1: frame and piped wife beater? And was that a gold
2:54
Speaker 1: star of David or a Pentagram hanging around his neck?
2:58
Speaker 1: Most important, how how did this dude look cool? So
3:03
Speaker 1: many questions rumors have persisted ever since he started working here.
3:09
Speaker 1: The pawnshop gig was the latest in a string of
3:11
Speaker 1: jobs out on the Fringes Bail Bondsman straight Pi off
3:16
Speaker 1: the book Snatch and Grab Man. Ord around town was
3:20
Speaker 1: that not only could he fix your turntable, he could
3:22
Speaker 1: play anything guitar, drums, sacks, and most proficiently, the devil's instrument,
3:29
Speaker 1: the fiddle. The kids who came in the shop fucked
3:32
Speaker 1: with him. He was an easy target, part soul trained,
3:35
Speaker 1: part porn star stand in. But when he pulled an
3:38
Speaker 1: old cassette tape and popped open the cheap plastic case
3:41
Speaker 1: with a flick of his thumb and shook out the
3:43
Speaker 1: cream colored cassette like he was shaking a Marlboro red
3:46
Speaker 1: loose from the soft pack he kept in his shirt pocket,
3:49
Speaker 1: everything changed, At least it did for the two impressionable
3:54
Speaker 1: teenage headbangers who'd wound their way into the back of
3:56
Speaker 1: the pawn shop, passed the thirty odd six and the
3:59
Speaker 1: velvet el and passed the stuffed jackalobe and the squire
4:02
Speaker 1: telecaster with the faded steel your face sticker peeling from
4:05
Speaker 1: the pit guard to where this dude was hiding in
4:08
Speaker 1: plain sight. He looked at them like he knew they
4:11
Speaker 1: were coming, and they looked at him like he had
4:14
Speaker 1: what they were looking for, and he did, And they
4:18
Speaker 1: stood there with their Cliff Burton Peach fuzz stashes and
4:21
Speaker 1: their torn Levi's jackets, ready to have their minds blown
4:24
Speaker 1: in a way that they knew the holier than thou
4:26
Speaker 1: twenty three year old down at the record store could
4:29
Speaker 1: never do. And they stared at the dude's stack of
4:32
Speaker 1: tapes with band names handwritten on the spines, names like Stone, Bunny, Space, Meat,
4:38
Speaker 1: Wicked Angel In Virgin Death. They stared at the letters
4:42
Speaker 1: inked on the knuckles of this dude on his right
4:45
Speaker 1: and left hands diez Era Day of Wrath. And they
4:50
Speaker 1: stared at the oily Chevron gas station work shirt that
4:53
Speaker 1: was chaotically tied around this dude's waist with a name
4:56
Speaker 1: patch over the left breast that read Teddy. Teddy knew
5:02
Speaker 1: that these two headbangers weren't here for a busted watch
5:05
Speaker 1: or a faulty piece of stereo equipment. They were there
5:10
Speaker 1: for this. He popped the cassette inside a boombox that
5:14
Speaker 1: was sitting there on the counter. It has to be
5:17
Speaker 1: a cassette, Teddy told them. The shit doesn't sound right
5:20
Speaker 1: any other way. A CD is gonna give you too
5:23
Speaker 1: much clarity, too much definition, and Vinyl fuck Vinyl, vinyls
5:28
Speaker 1: of pain in the balls. Yeah, I see you're not
5:31
Speaker 1: in your head before you even had time to process it.
5:33
Speaker 1: But of course I'm right. Vinyl sucks. Teddy press play.
5:42
Speaker 1: The riff came storming from the speakers, heavy thunderous, laying
5:46
Speaker 1: the tap hiss to waste. The boys instinctively slammed their
5:51
Speaker 1: heads up and down. What the fuck was this? Motorhead? No,
5:55
Speaker 1: this is it's more like Sabbath. But that definitely wasn't
5:58
Speaker 1: ausy on the mic. The guy sounded like an American.
6:02
Speaker 1: Teddy saw the excitement in their eyes, saw that they
6:05
Speaker 1: were having that full body chills reaction to hearing something
6:08
Speaker 1: for the first time that only kids of a certain
6:10
Speaker 1: age and suggestibility are capable of having. Teddy took in
6:14
Speaker 1: their reaction, breathed it in, really tried to absorb it,
6:18
Speaker 1: and hopes that it would awaken some sort of long
6:21
Speaker 1: dormant feeling that he lost possession of years ago. And
6:26
Speaker 1: then he exhaled. Hear that that's doom in that hiss
6:33
Speaker 1: you're hearing too, that tape hiss, that's the tape breathing's
6:39
Speaker 1: that's how you know it's alive. Never been pressed, never
6:43
Speaker 1: been released, buried for more than a decade. Only those
6:47
Speaker 1: who know know about this. I know what you're about
6:51
Speaker 1: to ask me, what's the name of the band? Right?
6:54
Speaker 1: Check it out? And Teddy just pointed at the gold
6:57
Speaker 1: chain hanging around his neck. Teddy laugh and as he did,
7:01
Speaker 1: he arched his head back, stretching out the leathery skin
7:04
Speaker 1: of his neck, and the boys could swear they saw
7:07
Speaker 1: his blue eyes turn red. Nah Man, Teddy said this.
7:12
Speaker 1: He pointed out the gold chain again, and this time
7:14
Speaker 1: the boys heard a sound like a thundercut, an explosion.
7:18
Speaker 1: A billboard all fiery red and blazing hot, seared into
7:21
Speaker 1: the back of their skulls, a billboard which read Teddy Pentagram.
7:28
Speaker 1: Teddy kept talking. You haven't heard of the band Pentagram,
7:32
Speaker 1: have you? No one has. But they've been around for
7:35
Speaker 1: a while, just like their namesake, the pentagram, the five
7:39
Speaker 1: pointed star that's been around longer than Christ, and the
7:43
Speaker 1: Egyptians carved it into their tombs. The Greeks used it
7:47
Speaker 1: as a secret handshake. One Greek in particular called it
7:50
Speaker 1: the mark of perfection. One line five points. You learn
7:54
Speaker 1: about the golden ratio in school, Yet well, anyway, I'm
7:57
Speaker 1: talking about protection, order, virtue from the tiny speakers. Pentagram's
8:03
Speaker 1: guitarists lid into a solo so fuzzed out it sounded
8:07
Speaker 1: like the boombox was melting. Now, when you flip it
8:11
Speaker 1: upside down, the Pentagram, all that order and virtue, shit,
8:15
Speaker 1: it goes out the window. Teddy then took his gold
8:18
Speaker 1: chain between two nicotine stained fingers and demonstrated what he
8:21
Speaker 1: was talking about. Just like that, you got the devil's pitchfork,
8:26
Speaker 1: Satan's horns, not protection damnation, he went on. Now, Bobby
8:33
Speaker 1: Leebling didn't know all that. Back in nineteen seventy one
8:35
Speaker 1: on Halloween night, when he was sitting in the basement
8:37
Speaker 1: of his parents' house in Alexandria, Virginia, he was just
8:41
Speaker 1: getting stoned out of his gore, passing a joint back
8:43
Speaker 1: and forth with his friend Jeff, trying to ignore all
8:46
Speaker 1: the neighborhood kitties as they went door to door with
8:48
Speaker 1: their pillowcases overflowing with that Knight's loop. You too need
8:52
Speaker 1: to understand that Bobby Leebling was eighteen years old, not
8:55
Speaker 1: much older than you guys, and just like you guys,
8:57
Speaker 1: he was chasing a heavy sound there on the pullout sofa,
9:01
Speaker 1: listening to his favorite band, Blue Cheer, at an ear
9:04
Speaker 1: blistering volume. You know, summertime blues. I'm not talking about
9:07
Speaker 1: the Who, and I don't mean Eddie Cochran. Neither Bobby
9:11
Speaker 1: and Jeff wanted to start their own band, and their
9:14
Speaker 1: one guiding principle was that they could be louder and
9:17
Speaker 1: heavier than Blue Cheer, which wasn't exactly in the cards
9:22
Speaker 1: for Bobby. Seeing as his father worked for Lyndon Johnson,
9:26
Speaker 1: Richard Nixon, and Gerald fucking Ford. They called Bobby Leaving's
9:30
Speaker 1: dad little Kissinger swear to fucking got well well, his
9:34
Speaker 1: dad was stamping out as Winston's and ashtrays at the Pentagon.
9:38
Speaker 1: His son Bobby was dropping acid on his tongue. Actually,
9:42
Speaker 1: according to Bobby, he dropped acid directly onto his eyeballs.
9:47
Speaker 1: At the mention of this, the two metal heads shared
9:49
Speaker 1: a glance somewhere between horror and fascination. Teddy brought his
9:55
Speaker 1: voice down to a whisper. This was back when LSD
9:59
Speaker 1: was legal, Back when a dropper full of that shit
10:02
Speaker 1: would blow the cobwebs out of your brain. Your mind
10:05
Speaker 1: would get so warmed you create people out of whole
10:08
Speaker 1: cloth and have conversations with them. And it wasn't long
10:12
Speaker 1: after that that Bobby got himself acquainted with the needle.
10:16
Speaker 1: My point is, Bobby Leaveling was not his old man.
10:21
Speaker 1: Bobby Leveling wasn't born to be a conformist suit and
10:24
Speaker 1: tie shaking hands with the leaders of the free world.
10:27
Speaker 1: Fuck that. Bobby was put on this earth to make
10:30
Speaker 1: a racket, to rattle the minds of others the way
10:33
Speaker 1: that his own mind had been rattled. Now, just exactly
10:38
Speaker 1: how do you do that? In the late nineteen sixties
10:41
Speaker 1: and early seventies. You know you've read the books. You
10:45
Speaker 1: start a fucking rock and roll band. And I don't
10:47
Speaker 1: have to tell you this, but when Bobby Leaveling started
10:51
Speaker 1: his band, it was faced at the same question that
10:53
Speaker 1: every guy who ever picked the guitars asked themselves. What
10:56
Speaker 1: am I gonna call my band? What do I choose?
10:58
Speaker 1: What name convey how the music I'm going to make
11:02
Speaker 1: sounds well? For Bobby, the answer came to very quickly.
11:07
Speaker 1: It was what all the suburban housewives were scared of
11:10
Speaker 1: at the time. Housewise, like his own mother, they were
11:13
Speaker 1: haunted by images of crazy Charlie Manson walking into court
11:16
Speaker 1: with those pinball eyes and with that big X carving
11:20
Speaker 1: into the flesh of his forehead. Suburban moms didn't just
11:24
Speaker 1: know about Manson. They listened to Sammy Davis Junior Man,
11:26
Speaker 1: They read The Inquirer. They knew about Anton LaVey and
11:29
Speaker 1: his book The Satanic Bible. It was like their worst
11:32
Speaker 1: nightmares were coming true. In this symbol, the Pentagram, the
11:38
Speaker 1: one right there on the cover of Anton LaVey's book.
11:41
Speaker 1: Bobby knew that that was the key that unlocked this
11:44
Speaker 1: so other dimension, a dimension that the Squares always thought
11:47
Speaker 1: never existed, but was now beginning to break through the
11:50
Speaker 1: fabric of reality as they knew it. This was what
11:54
Speaker 1: Bobby Leebling wanted his music to do, pierce the veil.
11:59
Speaker 1: But again, just like the two of you, Bobby was
12:02
Speaker 1: young at the time he named his band Pentagram, And
12:05
Speaker 1: when you're young, you think you get the world by
12:07
Speaker 1: the balls. You think that any decision you make could
12:10
Speaker 1: somehow be unmade down the line if things get fucked.
12:15
Speaker 1: The thing about the Pentagram, however, you draw that star
12:18
Speaker 1: one way, you keep the demons out, but you draw
12:21
Speaker 1: it the other way. Well, you let the man. As
12:58
Speaker 1: Teddy hit a jack on the boom and flipped over
13:01
Speaker 1: the tape, the two boys couldn't help but focus on
13:03
Speaker 1: his singular long fingernail sticking out conspicuously from his pinky.
13:08
Speaker 1: And then there was the skull ring on the next finger,
13:11
Speaker 1: over where some men would wear a wedding ring, but
13:14
Speaker 1: Teddy didn't strike them as the marrying type. Here flanked
13:18
Speaker 1: on one side by a sony receiver with a busted
13:21
Speaker 1: volume knob, and on the other by a morants that
13:24
Speaker 1: no longer lit up powder blue when you flip the
13:26
Speaker 1: power switch, Teddy was in his element. He pressed play,
13:31
Speaker 1: and once again, the sound of the greatest metal band
13:33
Speaker 1: the boys had never heard seemed to suck all the
13:36
Speaker 1: air from the room. Their feet felt like they were
13:39
Speaker 1: glued to the floor, and Teddy Teddy almost appeared to
13:43
Speaker 1: be lit from below as he continued to tell the
13:46
Speaker 1: tragic tale of Bobby Leebling and Pentagram. There's always Demons, man,
13:55
Speaker 1: and the demons were kept at bay for a while,
13:58
Speaker 1: but only briefly. You see, at first, Bobby couldn't stick
14:01
Speaker 1: to the name. He probably knew deep down inside of
14:04
Speaker 1: himself that there was something wrong with it that it
14:07
Speaker 1: would do him more harm than good and long run.
14:10
Speaker 1: So for a short period of time he called the
14:12
Speaker 1: Dan macab and they released one single in nineteen seventy two,
14:16
Speaker 1: this song called Before Warren. What a title, right, It's
14:20
Speaker 1: almost like he was talking to himself, you know. But
14:23
Speaker 1: like most great artists, Bobby leveland couldn't take his own advice.
14:27
Speaker 1: And the Pentagram's pull its power, it would not be denied.
14:31
Speaker 1: And so Bobby, with his friend Jeff on drums, Greg
14:35
Speaker 1: Main on bass, and Vincent McAllister on guitar, committed to
14:39
Speaker 1: that ancient symbol, and they committed to that cursed name Pentagram.
14:43
Speaker 1: The band was now a thing. And this is at
14:47
Speaker 1: the very same time that Bobby's hometown, Alexandria, Virginia, that
14:50
Speaker 1: bedroom community just outside the nation's capitol, where his old
14:54
Speaker 1: man little Kissinger was holed up doing god knows what
14:57
Speaker 1: with the Secretary of Defense. It was here the demons
15:00
Speaker 1: began to make their playground, and it was here that
15:03
Speaker 1: the bodies began to pile up, the bodies of women,
15:07
Speaker 1: specifically a high school junior found in a ravine with
15:11
Speaker 1: an ice pick jammed in her skull. An English teacher
15:15
Speaker 1: who had been slashed with a knife well over one
15:17
Speaker 1: hundred times in an eighteen year old a switchboard operator
15:20
Speaker 1: at the FBI who was found murdered with a pair
15:22
Speaker 1: of scissors in her apartment. These are only a few
15:26
Speaker 1: the many murders in Alexandria, Virginia in the nineteen seventies
15:31
Speaker 1: that are still unsolved to this day, murders in cases
15:35
Speaker 1: that are as cold as the February wind whipping off
15:37
Speaker 1: the Potomac. Teddy paused to let this information sink in.
15:44
Speaker 1: The two metal heads just sat there listening, waiting for more,
15:48
Speaker 1: and Teddy went on, and when Bobby decided to call
15:52
Speaker 1: his band Pentagram for good, the demons rounded the corner
15:55
Speaker 1: and zeroed in. The curse first struck in December in
16:00
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy five. This is right around the time that
16:03
Speaker 1: the band Kiss was turning into this phenomenon, a bunch
16:06
Speaker 1: of clowns and makeup right wrong Kiss Kiss Knights in
16:12
Speaker 1: Satan's Service. Sure, the band denied that that was even
16:16
Speaker 1: a thing, and they laughed at it, and they said,
16:18
Speaker 1: how stupid knights in Satan's service. But of course that's
16:22
Speaker 1: what Satan's Knights would say. They do anything to shield
16:25
Speaker 1: the very existence of their master. Before too long, Satan's
16:30
Speaker 1: Knights came to Alexandria, just as the demons had before them,
16:33
Speaker 1: only they came to make an unholy pact with Pentagram
16:36
Speaker 1: right there in Bobby Leebling's parents' basement. Literally, let me
16:41
Speaker 1: back up for a second. Pentagram's first manager, this guy
16:46
Speaker 1: named Gordon Fletcher. He was connected, and one of those
16:50
Speaker 1: connections was to Kiss. Now, look, I always thought that
16:54
Speaker 1: band was a fucking joke, but whatever, the point is,
16:57
Speaker 1: they were huge at the time, super big deal, and
16:59
Speaker 1: so Gordon Fletcher convinced Kiss's manager to send Gene Simmons
17:03
Speaker 1: and Paul Stanley over to Alexandria to hear Pentagram play.
17:08
Speaker 1: The idea was that Kiss would take Pentagram on the
17:10
Speaker 1: road and boost their profile, kind of like they did
17:13
Speaker 1: with Judis Priest later on. But from the jump, this
17:17
Speaker 1: whole meet and greet was fucked. Greg and Vincent, that's
17:20
Speaker 1: Pentagram's bassist and guitar player. They had these crummy jobs
17:24
Speaker 1: as janitors somewhere in town, and seeing that there are
17:27
Speaker 1: struggling musicians, starving artists, so to speak, they had no car,
17:31
Speaker 1: which meant that they hitchhike to work every day, and
17:34
Speaker 1: this day was no exception. This most important days for
17:38
Speaker 1: the career of their budding metal band, the day that
17:41
Speaker 1: two knights in the service of Satan, Jean and Paul
17:44
Speaker 1: were going to bring Pentagram into their army. This is
17:47
Speaker 1: stunt via blood oath? Was there a sacrifice at offering
17:50
Speaker 1: to the dark Lord? Greg and Vincent had no idea,
17:54
Speaker 1: but you can imagine their minds fucking wandered, man, just
17:58
Speaker 1: like they themselves wandered down the side of the road
18:01
Speaker 1: after they got out of work that day, just drifting along,
18:04
Speaker 1: their thumbs out, their pride, the bitterest of fucking pills,
18:07
Speaker 1: the swall, waiting for someone to take pity and stop
18:09
Speaker 1: to give him a ride. And when they finally arrived
18:12
Speaker 1: at Bobby's place, there were a sweaty mess and even worse.
18:14
Speaker 1: Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley have been waiting for close
18:17
Speaker 1: through an hour, getting more annoyed by the minute. But
18:20
Speaker 1: Pentagram's private performance for two of the biggest rock stars
18:23
Speaker 1: on the planet, it seemed to put everything right, at
18:28
Speaker 1: least for the brief time while it was happening. They
18:32
Speaker 1: ran through songs like Forever my queen. When the screams
18:35
Speaker 1: come and living in a ram's head, Bobby did his
18:38
Speaker 1: best possessed lead singer stick, and when they were finished
18:42
Speaker 1: they felt triumphant. It was only then that they felt
18:46
Speaker 1: the sting of the curse. Paul Stanley was polite enough,
18:51
Speaker 1: tried to let them down easy. Look, Gene, well you
18:54
Speaker 1: guys know Gene. He didn't hold back. He said, you
18:57
Speaker 1: guys call yourselves pentagram, and yet there's only four of you.
19:00
Speaker 1: You can't make a pentagram with four points. That's just
19:03
Speaker 1: a fucking square, which is what Bobby, Jeff, greg and
19:07
Speaker 1: Vincent were to Gene Simmons at least square. And so
19:13
Speaker 1: Satan's army you packed up and left, and there was
19:16
Speaker 1: no blood oath, no deal with the devil. I'm not
19:19
Speaker 1: talking about demons, because unlike the devil, demons didn't make
19:22
Speaker 1: a deal. A curse is not the byproduct of a deal.
19:26
Speaker 1: And how does one go about lifting a curse when
19:29
Speaker 1: you're unaware of its existence? The two metal heads looked
19:33
Speaker 1: at each other, confused. Teddy didn't care. He went on,
19:38
Speaker 1: So as all this is happening, Columbia Records comes calling
19:41
Speaker 1: by way Murray Krugman Murray Krugman, at the time, was
19:44
Speaker 1: one of Blue Oyster Cults managers and producers, and Murray
19:47
Speaker 1: Krugman ponied up cash to bring Pentagram to New York
19:50
Speaker 1: City so that they could record a demo. Murray Krugman
19:53
Speaker 1: brought them to the precipice. These four guys from a
19:56
Speaker 1: basement in Alexandria, Virginia were now balancing on the edge
20:00
Speaker 1: of the big time. And right then, right there, right then,
20:03
Speaker 1: at that pivotal moment, what did Bobby Leebling do. He
20:08
Speaker 1: tanked the session, He insulted Murray, He acted like they
20:12
Speaker 1: were making pet sounds or some shit, and he just
20:15
Speaker 1: had to get his vocal perfect just right. But to
20:19
Speaker 1: Murray to Columbia, just the fucking demo man, fast cheat.
20:24
Speaker 1: But Bobby couldn't let it be because something wasn't letting
20:28
Speaker 1: him let it be. Do you understand what I'm saying
20:30
Speaker 1: to you? This story kept playing like a broken record.
20:34
Speaker 1: Pentagram's name was inked on the ledgers of seven different
20:37
Speaker 1: managers in five years time. Every bridge Bobby crossed went
20:41
Speaker 1: up in flames as quickly as his feet got across it.
20:45
Speaker 1: Now back in the Middle Ages, way the fuck back
20:48
Speaker 1: chivalrous knights would display the pentagram on the shield. Sir Gawayne,
20:52
Speaker 1: for one, had it on both his shawl and his shield.
20:56
Speaker 1: Five points for five virtues, courage, honor, kindness, truth, loyalty.
21:02
Speaker 1: It was meant as protection against demons, but Pentagram the
21:08
Speaker 1: band protection was never in the carts. The only thing
21:13
Speaker 1: Bobby Leebling or anyone else could count on was the
21:17
Speaker 1: always present sound of doom. We'll be right back after this.
21:27
Speaker 1: We're we're, We're back. In the back of the pawnshop,
21:35
Speaker 1: Teddy stared at the two metal heads and he said,
21:38
Speaker 1: close your eyes. I want you to imagine something. The
21:43
Speaker 1: two boys did as Teddy instructed. Each of them was
21:46
Speaker 1: conscious that they were still standing in the same place
21:49
Speaker 1: in front of the fixed counter at the far end
21:51
Speaker 1: of the local pawn shop, and they were aware that
21:53
Speaker 1: they had been standing there for far longer than they
21:56
Speaker 1: had ever intended, and it was because Teddy wanted them
21:59
Speaker 1: to do so. There was no denying it. Pentagram was
22:03
Speaker 1: some of the best shit they'd ever heard, but they
22:05
Speaker 1: couldn't leave even if they wanted to. What had begun
22:08
Speaker 1: is this weird guy playing an obscure metal band for
22:11
Speaker 1: them had turned into something else. Now, Teddy's obvious enjoyment
22:17
Speaker 1: of their enjoyment simply listening to his cassette tape was
22:20
Speaker 1: kind of creepy, to be honest. It was like he
22:23
Speaker 1: was getting off on it or something. And so when
22:25
Speaker 1: he told him to close their eyes and imagine something,
22:28
Speaker 1: every fiber of their being said it probably wasn't the
22:30
Speaker 1: best idea, but they were powerless to deny it. So
22:35
Speaker 1: they closed their eyes and Teddy put another Pentagram tape
22:38
Speaker 1: in the boombox and hit play, and then he went on,
22:42
Speaker 1: Now I want the two of you to imagine you're
22:46
Speaker 1: stepping into the cockpit of a single engine Cessna for
22:49
Speaker 1: the first time. You've only ever been on a plane
22:52
Speaker 1: once in your life, a big commercial jetliner when you
22:55
Speaker 1: went to visit your Aunt Ronda in San Diego that
22:57
Speaker 1: one time. But now you're behind the wheel this little
23:00
Speaker 1: cessna and you're expected to fly it from Virginia all
23:04
Speaker 1: the way to Bogatar, Columbia. What is that two thousand
23:07
Speaker 1: miles at least? Yeah, you're good at following instructions, aren't you.
23:12
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. First, you gotta get this big
23:15
Speaker 1: bird up into the sky, and then you have to
23:17
Speaker 1: keep it down low, so low that you stay off
23:20
Speaker 1: everyone's radar, because you're made in voyage. Here isn't exactly
23:24
Speaker 1: on the up and up, and that's putting it mildly.
23:28
Speaker 1: Because you, my friend, are headed to Bogata, where you
23:31
Speaker 1: load up with kilo upon kilo of the finest Colombian
23:35
Speaker 1: cocaine and then smuggle it back into the United States.
23:40
Speaker 1: And you never met Escobar in person, but from what
23:43
Speaker 1: you've been told, that's a good thing. If you ever
23:46
Speaker 1: did meet him, it would probably be for all the
23:47
Speaker 1: wrong reasons, and you never walk away alive. The only
23:51
Speaker 1: people you meet down there are a couple of guys
23:53
Speaker 1: with no names in sunburnt faces, standing next to a
23:56
Speaker 1: badly rusted pickup on the side of a windswept cliff
23:59
Speaker 1: high in the hills, in this remote field, where a
24:02
Speaker 1: makeshift landing strip waits for you. You land the Cessna somehow,
24:07
Speaker 1: by the grace of God. You literally have no clue
24:10
Speaker 1: how you manage not to run out of gas and
24:12
Speaker 1: drop into the ocean, and then you load up quickly
24:14
Speaker 1: before the sun falls below the horizon. The next day,
24:18
Speaker 1: you're handing over the stacks of coke to a distributor
24:21
Speaker 1: in Virginia and he's handing you stacks of cash in return.
24:25
Speaker 1: I'm talking millions of dollars money which you then proceed
24:28
Speaker 1: to burn through women, cars, houses, diamond rings, and chinchilla coats. Shit. Man,
24:34
Speaker 1: you could have literally set it all on fire and
24:36
Speaker 1: it would have lasted longer. Then, just like that, you
24:39
Speaker 1: go back to your life as the leader of a
24:41
Speaker 1: metal band that no one's ever heard of. But actually
24:45
Speaker 1: the band isn't there anymore because you know dynamics. You're
24:48
Speaker 1: difficult to work with. A band is like being married
24:51
Speaker 1: to three or four people at the same time. There
24:53
Speaker 1: ain't even juice for the squeeze. Pick your reason. It's over.
24:56
Speaker 1: So you a guy who just ran drugs for Pablo
24:59
Speaker 1: fucking Escobar and lived to tell about it. You were
25:02
Speaker 1: back in your parents' basement dreaming up Pentagram mark two.
25:08
Speaker 1: Now tell me do you believe that story? Hey, open
25:14
Speaker 1: your eyes. The two boys did as Teddy commanded. He
25:19
Speaker 1: looked beyond excited to see them again, almost as if
25:22
Speaker 1: they'd gone away while their eyes were squeezed tight, and
25:24
Speaker 1: now here they were again at Teddy's behest. So Teddy
25:29
Speaker 1: went on Bobby Leebling said that all that really happened
25:33
Speaker 1: to him they piloted a Cessina was Colombian coke in
25:36
Speaker 1: the hold. But this is the same guy who said
25:39
Speaker 1: he dropped acid and his eyeballs. Maybe it was another
25:42
Speaker 1: hallucination in his parents' basement. Remember what I was talking
25:45
Speaker 1: about earlier, creating people out of whole cloth. Maybe Bobby
25:50
Speaker 1: thought he was staring at a briefcase full of millions,
25:52
Speaker 1: when in reality he was looking at a shoe box
25:54
Speaker 1: full of roach clips. But that's not the only explanation.
25:58
Speaker 1: It's all this careless handling of the pentagram business. You
26:02
Speaker 1: invert it even by accident. Now we're talking corruption of perception.
26:08
Speaker 1: The Wickens, well some of them at least, will tell
26:10
Speaker 1: you that the upright star in the pentagram keeps the
26:13
Speaker 1: spirit on the top, the five points of the star
26:17
Speaker 1: being air, fire, water, earth, and spirit. But if you
26:20
Speaker 1: flip it upside down, now you got two points on top,
26:24
Speaker 1: and it doesn't matter which two points or elements they are,
26:27
Speaker 1: you get two different points up top, and that means
26:29
Speaker 1: the spirit has been suppressed below the beast rises, the
26:34
Speaker 1: spirit sinks. So all this could have led to Bobby
26:38
Speaker 1: seeing Escobar's product at his feet, and also, as he
26:41
Speaker 1: later claimed to finding himself at a party at George
26:44
Speaker 1: Harrison's house in Maryland, where John Lennon's guitar pick somehow
26:47
Speaker 1: ended up inside his pocket. Now, did Bobby steal that
26:51
Speaker 1: pick or was it gifted? Even more important, did George
26:55
Speaker 1: even own a home in Maryland? I don't think so, dude.
26:58
Speaker 1: Fucking Maryland is a beatle. This is a delusion, okay,
27:03
Speaker 1: But somehow Bobby Leveling managed to remain in some part
27:07
Speaker 1: of reality long enough to restart Pentagram after the initial
27:11
Speaker 1: few lineups had fallen apart, and fourteen years after the
27:15
Speaker 1: band was formed. Pentagram self released their debut album in
27:20
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty five. But at this point, the doom metal
27:26
Speaker 1: sound that they'd helped define had fallen out of fashion
27:29
Speaker 1: quote unquote metal, at least to the mall going record
27:33
Speaker 1: buying public. Was rats round and round in Motley Cue's Home,
27:38
Speaker 1: Sweet Home, not hulking slabs of riff and songs about
27:43
Speaker 1: desecrated bones and maggot infested flesh. The fucking curse. Okay,
27:49
Speaker 1: back to the curse. The curse was in control. It
27:54
Speaker 1: buried the spirit and the beast took over, just like
27:58
Speaker 1: when the Pentagram fled. Now, look it's right here in
28:01
Speaker 1: the album's artwork. Teddy reached down below and pulled out
28:05
Speaker 1: another cassette, this one being the self titled Pentagram album
28:09
Speaker 1: from nineteen eighty five. The two boys looked at it
28:12
Speaker 1: like they've been staring at a TV screen for hours,
28:15
Speaker 1: like their brains have been sucked out through their noses,
28:18
Speaker 1: almost like the image wasn't registering at all. Teddy pointed
28:22
Speaker 1: to the band's logo, which was of course an inverted pentagram,
28:27
Speaker 1: and then he said, see, the balance has been tipped,
28:31
Speaker 1: and that was Bobby. That was the band. The spirit
28:35
Speaker 1: buried and the beast took over. Hey guys. Earlier in
28:57
Speaker 1: the episode our Narrator Here Teddy Pentagram met Bobby Leebling's
29:01
Speaker 1: story about running drugs for Pablo Escobar and the Cartels
29:04
Speaker 1: back in the day, and then another one about a
29:07
Speaker 1: party at George Harrison's house in John Lennon's guitar pick.
29:11
Speaker 1: Bobby was a bit of an unreliable narrator, say the least,
29:14
Speaker 1: and his wild stories don't stop there. In fact, he's
29:17
Speaker 1: got a particularly crazy one about going on a bender
29:19
Speaker 1: with the Rolling stones in their limo for hours, and
29:22
Speaker 1: we just didn't have time to cover that story here
29:24
Speaker 1: in the full episode, but you can hear it if
29:27
Speaker 1: you listen to this week's brand new mini episode or Disgraceland,
29:30
Speaker 1: which is available only to All Access members. To become
29:32
Speaker 1: a member, just go to disgracelandpod dot com slash membership
29:35
Speaker 1: to sign up. All right, now, back to this story
29:38
Speaker 1: about Doom Metal Godfather's pentagram. Teddy rooted around in the
29:45
Speaker 1: pocket of his black jeans, clearly not finding what he
29:48
Speaker 1: was looking for. He pulled his hand out and dropped
29:50
Speaker 1: a couple of quarters on the counter, along with a
29:52
Speaker 1: guitar pick he'd made by cutting a triangle out of
29:55
Speaker 1: a land of Lake's buttertub. Fuck is it? Oh? Yeah?
30:01
Speaker 1: His hand was back in his pocket, and this time
30:03
Speaker 1: he got it a tiny metal vial with an even
30:06
Speaker 1: tinier metal chain attached. He unscrewed the cap and carefully
30:11
Speaker 1: tapped on the vial, knocking some white powder out under
30:14
Speaker 1: that long, pinky fingernail. Then he brought the fingernail up
30:18
Speaker 1: to his nose and inhaled sharply. The boys could see
30:23
Speaker 1: the blue veins and his biceps. His eyes bulged as
30:26
Speaker 1: the nasal picked me up took effect, and he fumbled
30:29
Speaker 1: with another cassette tape, plunked it into the boom box
30:32
Speaker 1: and hit play. This one definitely sounded like it was
30:38
Speaker 1: Pentagram Circle in the nineteen eighties, and Teddy was right.
30:42
Speaker 1: It did sound way better on this shitty cassette. Inspired
30:46
Speaker 1: by the music, Teddy continued his story. Those old Pentagram
30:51
Speaker 1: tapes finally surfaced around the turn of the century. This
30:54
Speaker 1: metal label out of Pennsylvania, Relapsed Records, reissued them as
30:58
Speaker 1: a new compilation. Suddenly all the doom kids were lapping
31:03
Speaker 1: it up. They called Pentagram proto legends, they called Bobby
31:07
Speaker 1: Leebling the American Ozzy Osbourne, and before long you even
31:11
Speaker 1: had guys like Hank three, Hank Williams's grandson, playing Pentagram
31:14
Speaker 1: songs as part of his live set. This is where
31:17
Speaker 1: it's supposed to pay off for Bobby Leebling, right where
31:20
Speaker 1: all the years of struggling in the shadows, all the
31:22
Speaker 1: lineup changes, the missed opportunities with kiss and major labels,
31:27
Speaker 1: all of it worth it because now suddenly everyone wants
31:29
Speaker 1: a peace. You guys know better than that. You know
31:34
Speaker 1: that a curse doesn't just up and quit. The beast
31:37
Speaker 1: doesn't just let go. Let those demons down in Alexandria,
31:42
Speaker 1: they never went anywhere. All those cold cases there in
31:45
Speaker 1: Bobby's hometown, they're still unsolved. In the air, there is
31:49
Speaker 1: still unsettled, and for Bobby, his life continued to be
31:54
Speaker 1: just as unsettled. Only a few years back, in twenty seventeen,
31:58
Speaker 1: he was kicked out of his own bay. Some say
32:01
Speaker 1: he was admitted to a hospital. In fact, he had
32:03
Speaker 1: been arrested, charged with first degree assault and physical abuse
32:07
Speaker 1: of a vulnerable adult. Word was he pushed his eighty
32:11
Speaker 1: seven year old mother down the stairs, and that got
32:14
Speaker 1: Bobby eighteen months in prison in three years probation. And
32:18
Speaker 1: then earlier this year, twenty twenty five, with Bobby back
32:23
Speaker 1: in the lineup, back in the saddle at seventy fucking
32:26
Speaker 1: something years old, Pentagram incredibly was once again riding a
32:31
Speaker 1: wave of delayed goodwill and opportunity. They're getting ready to
32:34
Speaker 1: embark on their very first tour of Australia and New Zealand,
32:37
Speaker 1: which is weeks before the promoter pulled the plug on
32:41
Speaker 1: the entire tour Sidney, Melbourne, perth Auckland. All that this
32:45
Speaker 1: whole thing was suddenly on hiatus. The Pentagram was being
32:48
Speaker 1: denied the world stage, some fifty years after they first began.
32:52
Speaker 1: And why quote unquote current allegations? So you got to
32:57
Speaker 1: assume they're talking about the thing with Bobby and his mom.
32:59
Speaker 1: I guess I don't know, though, Why would a conviction
33:01
Speaker 1: from years earlier, for which he'd already done his time?
33:04
Speaker 1: One would presume, why would that be described as a
33:07
Speaker 1: current allegation? Could the current allegation be the very thing
33:11
Speaker 1: I've been talking to you guys about this entire time,
33:14
Speaker 1: the allegation of Bobby Leebling's associations with that upside down star,
33:19
Speaker 1: the Curse the Beast. Teddy suddenly hit stop on the boombox,
33:27
Speaker 1: and a shocking silence replaced the music. But there, seeping in,
33:33
Speaker 1: ever so slightly, was the tape hiss. The sound slowly
33:39
Speaker 1: grew louder, even though the tape was no longer playing.
33:43
Speaker 1: And the boys, wait, wait, where were those two keenage boys,
33:50
Speaker 1: The boys who had been here the whole time, the
33:52
Speaker 1: ones who couldn't leave, who had been held captive by
33:56
Speaker 1: Teddy's otherworldly poll? Hey you who? Yeah? You the one
34:02
Speaker 1: listening to me? Talk right now, What teenage boys do
34:06
Speaker 1: you think you're referring to. There's no one else here.
34:10
Speaker 1: It's just you and me. You're the one who's been
34:13
Speaker 1: standing here the whole time. You nodded your head when
34:16
Speaker 1: I said that Vinyl sucked. You closed your eyes and
34:19
Speaker 1: then opened them back up when I told you to
34:22
Speaker 1: you remember right, I'm dead fucking serious. You thought you
34:26
Speaker 1: were listening to a story. You thought you were one
34:29
Speaker 1: step removed, like you could eavesdrop from the safety of
34:32
Speaker 1: your car, or your kitchen or wherever it is you're
34:35
Speaker 1: listening to this right now. No, man, you weren't listening
34:40
Speaker 1: to a story. You've been listening to the tape, and
34:45
Speaker 1: once you hear it, you can't unhear it. It's inside you,
34:50
Speaker 1: just like it's inside Bobby, just like it's inside me.
34:55
Speaker 1: You can call it a curse, you can call it
34:57
Speaker 1: the beast. You can even call it a disgrace. I'm
35:04
Speaker 1: Jake Brennan, and this this Disgraceland, all right. Thanks for
35:26
Speaker 1: hanging out with us and our very trusting narrator here,
35:29
Speaker 1: Teddy Pentagram, for our Pentagram Story Question of the Week.
35:33
Speaker 1: You know we all had a Teddy Pentagram in our lives,
35:36
Speaker 1: someone who shepherded us to the great music? Who was
35:40
Speaker 1: that for you? Was it an older sibling and uncle?
35:42
Speaker 1: Was it someone at a record store, some cool dude
35:45
Speaker 1: in a band. You know, your older sister who let
35:48
Speaker 1: me know? Who was your musical sherpa who opened up
35:51
Speaker 1: the world of great rock and roll, punk, rock, jazz?
35:54
Speaker 1: Whatever it was? Who turned you on six one, seven,
35:57
Speaker 1: nine oh six sixty sixty three eight voicemail and text
36:00
Speaker 1: and you might hear your answer on the afterparty bonus
36:02
Speaker 1: episode coming up right after this. Hit me up at
36:06
Speaker 1: disgrace slampod on the socials. All right, here comes some credits.
36:11
Speaker 1: Disgraceland was created by Yours Truly and is produced in
36:14
Speaker 1: partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be
36:17
Speaker 1: found on the show notes page at disgracelampod dot com.
36:21
Speaker 1: If you're listening as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank
36:24
Speaker 1: you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And
36:27
Speaker 1: if not, you can become a member right now by
36:29
Speaker 1: going to disgracelampod dot com slash membership, rate and review
36:33
Speaker 1: the show, and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and
36:36
Speaker 1: Facebook at disgracelampod and on YouTube at YouTube dot com,
36:40
Speaker 1: slash at disgracelanpod, Rock a Rolla. He then