Panda Man Gig Report

We've never played a Thursday night gig at the Old Town and I didn't know what to expect. We were rewarded with a sparse but appreciative crowd that included some old timers we hadn't seen for awhile, like ex-Unforgiven/Bung Boy and current Hickmen sidekicks Finn and Jones and Big Tim from Claremont with a few of his buddies. Gus from Mr. T's Bowl was there too. Of course, if you can identify every single fan of yours at a single show, then you know it's probably not a standing room only crowd, but you do what you can.

I mean, at least it was better than what we faced at the Garage last Saturday, one of the more depressing shows, in my opinion, we have done for quite some time. I have long posited that LA doesn't "get it" and the last show there (which will be our last show at that dump, apparently) only adds to the ammunition. First off, we're playing as a quartet this week, with guitarist Jeff Nixon on maternity leave (yes, I know, it's usually the woman that gets the leave), which is not an entirely unleapable hurdle. Hell, we played a gig last month in Pomona where drummer Ian Crosstown had to leave the country two hours before the show in an international emergency, and we pulled the show off just fine. But it turns out it's the little things that trip you up, like the fact we didn't open our show with "Homo".

"Homo" is really a spoken word piece, with a certain amount of enduring charm (it was written in 1979 and first performed in 1980), and we apportion the verses out to all the standing members of the band and it gets a few laughs and establishes a proper ambiance for the show. However, I didn't realize how vital it was until we didn't play it on Saturday, since Jeff takes the first verse and we thought "Oh, the hell with it, we have plenty of great songs!" and we started getting requests for the "gay" song and it was then I knew my mistake. Live and learn.

But I doubt even if we had played it we could have made any kind of nominal impact on the crowd. Well, we might have if the Squad was utilized correctly, but honestly I have no idea why we played this show, none at all.

This was a night of "buzz" bands, and all of them with chick singers. Our problem: we got no "buzz" and the singer's a dude. So that's an odd combination from the start. Plus, we were assigned the opening slot, which meant that arriving scenesters had the option of coming in to watch us or go straight to the liquor bar and wait. Now, if we were a "buzz" band, if they had known us from several mentions in hugely influential trade zines, I'm sure they would have checked us out. And maybe they did, it's really hard to see once I'm inside the mask. But my perception is that most poked their head in and went "ho hum yawn, just another guy with chocolate syrup smeared all over himself, wearing a panda mask and panda g-string, wrestling with a girl in a bikini until she sticks her bass up his ass . . . I think I'll go have a smoke," and walked out.

This is how bad it was: A girl I know showed up in time to coerce her way onto our guest list, with a cute friend, which should have at least made the dreary hanging out later more tolerable - but by the time the show was over they were nowhere to be found, they had split the scene. There is so much that is wrong with this I cannot begin to tell you. Then, as soon as the show was over and I had stepped outside into the alley, three other people we know pulled up, just in time to have missed the whole gig. Then they split the scene too.

But DougMiller stayed and plied me with beers and I watched this plausible but barely above average Blondie wannabe band called the Checkers, and let me state plainly that I'm not trying to harshly vent our lack of following by belittling and taking it out on other bands that have their shit together more than us. But when I saw the crush there to watch them, local favorites I imagine, I just thought this was lame. The Squad doesn't have a "buzz" and it's ridiculous to even think that we are going to draw even a dozen people to any gig, ever. We have a much better track record of appearing unannounced in front of unsuspecting crowds and dazzling them when they realize they have no other choice but to face us. The show last spring at Qtopia's is the best example of that. If you book the Squad you really have to put them in the optimum position for success. And this rarely happens and it didn't happen here.

But I realized that night that "buzz" is just about all that gets these LA hipsters off their duffs and out into the nightlife, and they are not going to arrive early enough to check us out, so would it not be prudent to place us in the middle of the gig, in the middle of the "buzz." Look, I know that indie bands and indie labels pretty much rule the roost, but if you think they are able to sign and produce support and resources for all of the "best" bands out there, you're nuts. Perfect information just does not exist. And all this is doing is creating "niche" bands that can perform well enough to draw attention, and little else. I could be wrong here, maybe the Checkers or the Husbands or the Demolition Doll Rods will all be gracing the covers of Rolling Stone or Spin or Maxim about this time next year, and I'll be exposed once again as a bitter crank. But, you know, I saw the converted cargo vans that the two touring bands were plowing around the country in, and that's a hell of a lot of misery to go through just to play in front of 30 people at 1:30 in the morning.

So you could say I'm extremely jealous.

Well, we didn't have that sort of crowd at the Old Town, it was more of a working class crowd, judging by the people who had to leave by 11:00 because they had to be up at five in the morning. Good buddies Third Grade Teacher opened up the show, I think we've played with them a dozen times now, which means we get a free mocha. But it was a good mix between fans who could shout out obscure requests - we played "I Need A Girl (With A Car)" for the first time in many a month (not to mention "Looking Good" and long-neglected "Spot the Tard" - and drunks off the street that we immediately preyed upon who tried really really hard to not pay any attention to us. There were three kids on the patio, I think they were the cast for the new version of "Three's Company," that paid us no never mind at all. Even when the Panda Man was prancing around in all his glory and one of them came in and did something, piss or something, and she just walked by like she was at the supermarket and we were offering a free sample that held no interest to her.

Still, we knew where we stood with this crowd, which was good, because the dude to chick ratio was about 50-1 at this show, meaning that "No Pussy Tonight" once again was the highlight. In fact the dudes were so vociferous in their sing-along that I personally felt sorry for them, but at least there is one band in the world that is there to share their misery!

Beats a kick in the pants, that's for sure!

When Music Becomes Trivial


Really, the story begins the night before, when I got a phone call from Jeff Hayes, telling me "It's a boy!" or something along those lines, a new child brought into the world, named Roman, vibrant and healthy. Congratulations to Jeff and Carol!

So we went out and had a drink, although I was dead beat from the night before, the Old Town gig. On our way back to the car, I noticed a bunch of numbers pasted on the sidewalk and I realized that the next day Saturday was Village Venture day in Claremont, a day when thousands descend upon the Village and mill about and buy stuff. What this meant for me was that my usual morning trip to get the newspaper would encounter a little traffic.

And I had indeed forgotten about the Venture by the next morning, but the long stream of cars parked on my street reminded me. It was about the worst day ever for a festival, with a constant stream of ash falling like snowflakes out of the sky. But this didn't deter the mob, no sir. They were bound and determined to be there, in spite of the looming fire just a few miles away, not to mention the lousy air quality. I stayed long enough to see the parade advertising a performance of "The Nutcracker" and left.

When I got home I started hearing reports of the San Bernardino fire, and seeing video of people rushing like crazy to get out of their homes. Later, when I found out the extent of the damage, I was stunned. Hundreds of homes lost, in the blink of an eye. This upset me like, well I'm always in a constant state of being upset at something, but those are usually trivial matters. This just ripped me to the core, the idea that you could wake up in the morning and not realize that it was the last time you would ever sleep in your own bed, in your own home, ever again. I felt much the same as I did on 9/11 - helpless and not the least bit guilty (for not being a victim). All of this because of some deranged lunatic arsonist.

The rest of the day crawled at a snail's pace. I watched the World Series and momentarily exulted in the Marlin triumph. I took inventory of my "supplies" and realized I only had to buy a bag of tortillas for the night's show. I also realized that "Road Panda," as it is referred to, had a funky smell to it and I didn't want to wear it, so I snagged "Original Panda" (with one eye missing) for a rare live performance.

When I left my house, around 9:30-10:00, there was nothing untoward happening.

I got to 51 Buckingham and found that, unlike previous gigs, things were ahead of schedule and that we would be going on in short order. Of course, I was the only band member there yet.

Second Street in Pomona is usually bustling on a Saturday night, and this was a "fourth Saturday," when there should have been live bands playing in the streets and so forth, but the whole place was eerily quiet. The Glass House was shuttered, but even more surprisingly so was El Taco Nazo, and I had never seen that before. That place is always open. Even when I told Rolo and Joe about it they didn't believe me. But it was true. 51 Buckingham was suffering from the D-Squad curse (no one shows up to our gigs) and it was spookier than a good Halloween party, which we decided was where everyone was.

And it made sense, considering the fires and the smoke and the low visibility. I myself was trying to place the actual importance of the show in its proper perspective, and had a hard time doing it. But it wasn't just at our gig, it was at Yesteryears too. They seemed to have less people, and they get large bands that can really play. Even at the Tiki Room, where they were having "The Haunting", some kind of metal fest, there appeared to be only a handful of people watching a Slipknot kind of band. I couldn't really see for sure.

Yet, incredibly, there was life on the street in the form of a store opening, some kind of guitar shop, where a band featuring our friend Leif was playing and a nice size crowd of drunken revelers were, well, reveling. If we could get them over to our gig, then maybe we got something going, but that was a pipedream. There was already beer and girls at the store opening, they didn't need anything from the Panda Man, that's for sure.

Ian showed up and then new daddy Hayes, with his oldest son Spencer, who I found out was going to make his guitar debut with the band for this gig. Once The Sess finished, whatever crowd they had cleared out in short order. On this night I will give it a pass, although their exit did not seem fire related. The now common trend of coming to a club to see your friend's band play and then leaving as soon as the show is over, is something I just cannot understand, but what can you do?

And that left nobody to see us, absolutely nobody, except Spencer. On the Warped Tour we once played in front of three people, but this was far worse. Yet, it seemed trivial on this night. Plus, Laura and Bob were nowhere to be found and, truth be told, there were some Halloween parties we wanted to go to, so I was ready to do the gig with just me, Hayes and Ian. What the hell, we've done so many shows lately with personnel missing, it would be a breeze.

Then our friend Alan Long appeared, so we now had two people to see us, and after that Laura and Bob, and Rolo went across the street and dragged a couple of people over and by the time we started there were maybe a dozen folks inside, enough so that we legitimately had to try our best. However, because of the fires, and the fact that our friend Stuart told us he had just come back from helping someone in San Antonio Heights evacuate their home, I didn't feel like the usual in-your-face snide put down of a show. It just didn’t feel right.

So we started with an old song, "Serious Love" and that felt good and then we played a few new ones "Welcome to the Drunkfest" and "You Suck" (dedicated to the arsonist, natch). There were enough people there to toss tortillas about so we did "Taco Truck" and then I got a wild hair up my ass and called out "Cindy" which we haven't played in years. I forget what else happened but it all ended with "Radar Love" which went into "Your Girlfriend's Ugly" even though no one was prepared for that, and Spence came up and jammed and Bob had his shirt off so I grabbed a camera and took a picture of his ass crack. You can bet that'll be in the picture gallery soon!

So that was it, and afterwards we chatted with a guy who had seen us somewhere, the Green Door or something and he even followed us over to Billy's house, where the party was winding down but there was still plenty of beer for the Squad to guzzle, while we watched costumed jocks getting down with their women.

This was out in West Covina and I turned my head and that's when I saw the flames on the hill and I thought, "What the fuck is that?" Of course, you can't tell exactly where a fire is, especially in the dark, but it looked altogether threatening and I started feeling like I should go home and see what was up. One girl saw the fire and went, "Omigod! I live in La Verne. We almost got burned up in last year's fire!" And she seemed pretty shaken but her and her boyfriend or whatever he was weren’t so alarmed as to leave, but that made up my mind for me, because I didn't think it was in La Verne, I thought it was in Upland or Claremont.

So I got the hell out of there, it was 2 or 3 in the morning, with the time change I couldn't tell, and just followed the orange glow all the way up Monte Vista to Baseline and there they were: tall, leaping flames just going. Cops were there keeping people from traveling up the hill but I didn't see any firemen. People were lined up all the way down the street. I parked and just watched. There was a curious mix of looky-loos like me and real honest-to-god nerve-wracked evacuees, everyone just standing there dumbfounded, because to my knowledge, a fire has never gotten down this far. I asked someone how long it had been going and he looked at me like I was an idiot and I said, "I know how long the fire has been burning, how long has it been here!" and he said since about 11:00.

Finally the cops made us move our cars off the bridge and I went down to the AM/PM. I was really hungry for some reason and I wanted one of their greasy double burgers but they didn't have any, just some crappy microwave burritos. There was a group of people standing outside the doors, just drinking coffee and talking. I assumed they had been driven out of their homes but I didn't bother to ask them. Nobody seemed unusually upset, they seemed to be taking things in stride. There was nothing I could do about anything so I left. As I was driving down Foothill I realized there was another orange glow up Indian Hill and so I drove up there.

This was even scarier. The flames were leaping above Baseline and I knew that it was in the housing tract. People were outside their houses below Baseline, just standing and watching and waiting. A steady stream of cars was coming down out of the neighborhood, forced to flee in the middle of the night. I became numb. The fire was only a half mile from my house. And though I live in the "flatlands" of Claremont, near the Village, the recent memory of flatlanders losing their homes in San Bernardino, because of uncontrollable wind-whipped flames, sent a chill down my spine. Plus, I knew people that lived up there in the evacuation zone – Laura's parents, Javier the flower guy, Dave Carpenter's folks, people in Palmer Canyon, my landlady (well . . . hmm, no, I even felt bad for her).

This time I didn't stop, I went straight home. Oddly enough, this was the one time there was no "team coverage" on the TV to watch so I turned on KNX and they had the damn Drama Hour on, so I tuned to KFWB just in time to hear a woman calling in from up the street, telling the tale.

There was nothing I could do, so I heated up the Microwave burrito and sat and kept a silent vigil. The next morning, I got an idea of how many structures were lost (dozens) and I wondered how many of those were occupied by residents who attended the Village Venture the day before, not knowing they had spent their last night in bed at their own house.

I drove up Indian Hill and saw a group preparing balloons for a party at Memorial Park and further up the street I saw someone jogging. Parties? Jogging? Somehow, I didn't feel either action to be appropriate, but I guess if you don't do these things, then the other side wins.

I spent the day partly sipping coffee in Los Feliz, where I heard a girl exclaim in her cell phone about what "a great day" it was; and partly in the Garment district in LA, where I questioned a vendor selling $5 DVD's how the hell he could possibly have a copy of "Kill Bill" and "School of Rock" in his inventory, seeing as how they had not been issued yet for home viewing.

He wouldn't answer me. Life goes on.

LEMONADE
Ha! You say, "Mr. P, we went down to the Black Watch and there was no freakin' D-Squad to be found!"

Well, ahem, yeah I know.

Occasionally Panda Man makes a "Boo-Boo" (not unlike another famous bear) and imagine his surprise when he, on a hunch, called ahead to the venue and found out that there was indeed another band booked for the night. Oops! Apparently Panda Man forgot to make a "gig confirmed" phone call. It happens.

So what the hell to do when, for the umpteenth time, life has presented you with lemons? Obviously, you attempt, as the trite saying goes, to make lemonade. Or in this case attempt to make a new record entitled "Lemonade". To that end, the Squad assembled at Laura's house, 8-track in tow, to work on the first new band recordings since Summer 2002. Of course, things have changed a little since then. Then we got booked into the legendary Ocean Way Recording studio in Hollywood. Ocean Way's walls are overflowing with rich and astounding history, as evidenced by the hundreds of pictures or RIAA certifications hung proudly, from The Chairman of the Board Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole to Courtney Love and Dr. Dre. It was almost intimidating, but the Squad managed to filthy the atmosphere a bit with a stirring version of "Stop Being A Dick!"

Laura's house is hung with, well there's the Elvis clock anyway, how's that for aura? Still it didn't make much difference. It took the band only five hours to record two of their newest soon-to-be-forgotten classics - "Welcome to the Drunkfest" and "You Suck"!

PHONE CALL FROM A LEGEND
The recordings were advancing swimmingly, the guitar tracks by Bob Jones and Jeff Nixon just about completed when the phone rang and Laura answered it and took it outside, as to not to disturb the players. There was something about that phone call that seemed odd. Perhaps it was when Laura said "Sirdar?" rather sheepishly. The Panda Man sauntered outside after a minute or two and was immediately being summoned to the phone.

"Here! You have to talk to Kim Comet!"

Kim Comet? No, no, it just couldn't be! The same Kim Comet, former lead singer of the seminal 80s LA band Silver Chalice? The same Kim Comet, who used to drink Karo syrup on stage and pull out his pubic hairs with a pair of pliers? The same Kim Comet, that no one has seen or heard from in at years and who has nominally been missing and presumed dead?

Well, yeah. With apologies to Roy Orbison, there is only one Kim Comet.

And, really, the only one who could speak to Kim was Bob Jones, but Bob was still trying to nail down the final guitar track and it seemed imprudent to interupt. However, it was either put Bob on the line or lose Kim for another several years. Bob, who is rarely much on hyperbole, was so shocked to hear that Kim was on the phone that all he said was, "No way!" and immediately threw down his axe and got on the phone with Kim.

Which begs the question - what is more unlikely:
A D-Squad recording?
Laura's house not turning into a drunkfest?
A phone call from Kim Comet?

Once again, the winner is Kim Comet, who it was later revealed, is apparently doing fine and living in Santa Cruz. And looking for Brendan Mullen. Ha! Who knows what that is all about.

Hopefully Brendan will be just as surprised to hear from Kim as we were.

The idea, really, was to get Peter Tork, yes that Peter Tork, to come out and play some tunes with us at 51 Buckingham. It wasn't that much of a stretch. I was going out to his home in Venice to interview him for a piece that will run in Pasadena Weekly. He was rehearsing with a band mate for a live show that would be recorded for a CD. I figured, "Well, why wouldn't Peter Tork want to come down and jam some tunes with us, just for the hell of it?"

Well, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! What a foolish notion that was.

To begin with, Tork wasn't especially comfortable with me in his home, although he did offer me a glass of water and allow me to use his bathroom (immaculate, by the way). But otherwise it was his friend, a guy named James Lee Stanley, that made me feel welcome and nominally at ease with the situation. Let's face it. If you ever got a chance to meet a Monkee, don't you think you would be frothing at the mouth, with no limit of questions to ask, and that it would be fascinating to hear something, anything, a magic tale about one of the most famous American music groups of all time?

Yes, you probably would, but I will give you some advice on this end, look up Davy Jones or perhaps Mickey Dolenz or even Michael Nesmith (although my guess is he's a curmudgeon himself), because Tork will give you nothing, nothing I tell you, and for the most part make you feel bad for asking.

Now, I'm being a little harsh here, but why shouldn't I be? No one is coming over to my house to find out my band history, nor would I reasonably expect anyone to. And to the extent that what happens in the past is the past and you should always look to the future, still, for journalistic purposes, and for future booking purposes as well, what has happened to you in your past makes all the difference in the world. If Tork is never a Monkee then, as a 60+ rocker with no track record, the best he might be able to do is play for scraps at Old Town Pub (not that there's anything wrong with that) as opposed to rocking the Coffee Gallery for a percentage of the door. So why not embrace it, your esteemed history, and use it as a springboard?

Actually, Tork does that, in concert, but that's getting ahead of the story a bit. And, to be honest, there was a fervent philisophical streak that Tork displayed, during the interview, that I could certainly relate to. But I didn't come there as an artist prepared to toss ideological bullshit around, I came as a journalist on assignment, and that mostly included getting a cool story or two. Ya think?

Well, like I said, this Stanley guy is a real nice guy and he had stories to tell, and most of them were funnier than hell. If I ever did a profile on him, it would be smooth sailing. But who gives a crap about that when you have a Monkee.

And, even after Tork had deflected all of my inquiries regarding any part of his past that had anything to do at all with music, I still attempted to commiserate with him over the concept of a "drunk" band making things impossible to deal with, something I've had a little experience with the Squad. But no sooner had he mused on this for a second than he came to a sudden decision:

"Are we all through here? Beat it!"

Yes, that is correct, Peter Tork of the Monkees essentially kicked me out of his house. And I never got to invite him out to Pomona.

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE VAULT
What a difference a month makes. In October we play in Pomona on one of the worst nights ever, with fires in the mountains and ashes falling like snowflakes and hot dry wind blowing. By the time November rolls around it's colder than a witches tit.

I feared the worst for this gig, because at least two different sets of supporting bands had been booked and cancelled, and as close as the Wednesday before the show, D-Squad was the only band booked for the evening. Fortunately, a complete and total tank was averted (although the title "Tank Gig Saturday" is now the official name of our program) and, in fact, thanks to the band that did play, Aggro Tommy from Long Beach, the night turned into one of our better shows in a while.

But you knew things were going to be a little different when Joe Black calls me on stage as Aggro Tommy is setting up and says, "Yeah, these guys know you from the Warped Tour, when you got kicked off the bus." And, I'm like, there's people that know that? I mean, that aren't like our inner circle? Besides, if they had played with us on the tour I would have remembered their name, for sure, and I got up there and I didn't recognize anyone, although I wanted to, cuz Aggro Tommy has two really hot chicks in the band, the singer and the bass player (and both married, I guess, of course).

"So, how do you know this story?" I inquired. And the singer, whose name is Sarah, looks at me and goes, "Yeah my husband is in NOFX, and they played with you on Warped and he told me the story." Well, it sort of makes sense, except for one part - NOFX didn't play our year. But, I still knew that the story was accurate.

"Are you sure it wasn't Me First?" The Gimme Gimmes were on tour with us that year, and I figured he was the NOFX guy that was in that band, and Sarah said, "Yeah maybe," and I just laughed. The Squad getting kicked off the bus on the Warped Tour is just about our most classic tale (and the tale I was trying to regale Tork with when he kicked me out of his house), and the proof of it is that musicians in "name" bands can still recollect it more than two years later. Depsite the dubiousness of the tale, I was amused to hear it, coming from this band. It was like they already had a healthy respect for us, for all the wrong reasons! But, what the hell, notoriety is notoriety.

In any case, Aggro Tommy played, and they kicked some Aggro butt and, more importantly, unlike some bands we have gigged with in recent months, actually stuck around to watch us, which was nice, since that rarely happens anymore.

I fused the two events together - the recalcitrant Tork incident and the Aggro Tommy recognition - and used that as my between songs aggravation/motivation. There was a bizarre, eclectic crowd there, some Squad regulars - Andy Whitson, Chris Tucker, Jason Carlson, Bridgette, some friends from Riverside - Annie and Micah and their two friends, Tonia from upstairs, Willie from down the street, Rob Landis, who got us into Ocean Way Recordings to record "Stop Being a Dick," showed up out of nowhere to record the show (it's too bad I kept disengaging the mike from it's cord), and even Writing Class Rick was there, it took me a while to figure out where I knew him from. And to complete the picture, some guy who last saw us "in the eighties". I always love to see those guys, always.

And also Jeff's oldest son, Spencer, there to plug in and play with us on "Your Girlfriend's Ugly" again. He did it last time, and now I guess it's a tradition, so there you go. Doesn't take much.

The set was notable in that we revived "Band" and "Jello Ball" for the first time in several months. We'd put those songs on the back burner for a while, in order to see if newer songs could come up and fit the bill, songs like "Welcome to the Drunkfest" and "You Suck". They do, sort of, but I'm beginning to realize that "Band" and "Jello Ball" are very formidable songs to replace and that there is room for all of them, even though we were all a bit rusty in the performance of them.

The highlight of the show had to have been "Taco Truck," which had the benefit of me realizing I'd left my damn bag of tortillas in my car. Jason volunteered to get them for me and I told him "Hell no, you'll steal my car!" As I threw Jason my keys Rolo came up with a spare bag, and we were on our way. I'm telling you, drunks tossing tortillas in your face, or your crotch, or wherever, it never gets old.

Sometime later I complained that both Black Sabbath and Lynyrd Skynyrd were left out of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, while Jackson Browne and the Dells were inducted. There is not enough space on this blog to describe to you how ridiculous those choices are, none the least of which is that Jackson Browne and the Dells don't even play rock and roll, for gods sake.

And that was it, pretty much. We look forward to playing more with Aggro Tommy and maybe we can get some of their "buzz" to rub off on us.

Next gig is the Anarchy Bookstore, or something like that, on Dec. 12. See you there.

FIRST, A LITTLE DOGMA
Anyone who has ever submitted demo material and been turned down would truly appreciate the Anarchy Library, a venue that in October sent out a general email soliciting bands to play with the caveat that no demo tapes would be accepted. The Panda Man, of course, has long played the crank role in this insidious ritual - the idea that the sum total of an artist's capabilities can be completely ascertained by a cassette tape, an 8x10" photo and a "merch" item or two strikes me as flawed at best and hideously exclusionary at worst. In other words the gigs and support money inevitably are granted to the bands that have the slickest package - no matter what they can or can't do on a stage. (although, at the end of this post I will reveal another way that skirts all known strategies!)

But suppose what you do can't really be translated into a "package"? Where is the fairness of that? And for anybody who has lamented at any time in the last several years that "music sucks now" or a similar plaint, how much of this can be traced right to the doorstep of this whole "promo pack" mania that rewards marketing genius over creative genius. Not that the two are mutually exclusive but, if just one deserving band is excluded, doesn't that suggest that other models be considered? Especially in these days when the industry, as Kevin Lyman of the Warped Tour asserts, is in "a shambles"?

Well, then, thank god for the Anarchy Library. It took only two emails - one ignored and the other threatening - to get the D-Squad on a cool show on a Friday night. No questions asked. But now after the gig, it might be wise for Kevin the Anarchy Library promoter to at least find out a little about the bands he books, so that he doesn't freak out when punk rock suddenly becomes messy, like when the D-Squad plays!

But that's getting a little ahead of ourselves.

GOOD FEELING
I had a good feeling about the show, just because of the fact that we were playing next to last. I've alluded to this before - you never, absolutely never, want to get stuck with the first slot on a gig or the last one. Unless you are a legit headliner, the middle slot is the one you want. It didn't used to be that way, but concert going habits have changed a lot in recent years, and people don't seem as willing to come early and stay late as they used to. Lots of times, they only come to see "their" band and then leave.

But I held out the hope that the Anarchy Library has built up enough of a rep that it would bring in its own crowd and I was pleasantly surprised that it did. And a good looking crowd it was, mostly kids watching kid bands. I love these situations - they are the absolute best for Desperation Squad. Like the Qtopia's show or Mondo Video, just put us in front of a crowd that has no damn clue what to expect and we will do the rest and by the end of the night, guaranteed, someone will tell us we're the best band they have ever seen, or something pretty close.

Of course, if you've been following the Gig Report, you know we've been hitting speed bumps lately - our Halloween backyard gig was too dismal to even report on - so I can boast all I want but it's been a while since we've had the opportunity to back it up. This was our chance.

The Anarchy Library is a tiny postage-stamp of a bar, but they're friendly, even though they omitted "Squad" from the grease board. There's a pool table in the middle and the stage isn't even a stage, it's a drum riser and that's it - you're looking eye level with your audience, which makes it harder to display your mystique. There's also a big screen TV behind the band. For a while it was showing the movie "Caveman" with Ringo Starr and John Matusak, but then a wierd Quentin Tarantino-style Japanese movie with subtitles came on - it had all these Japanese girls in school uniforms shooting machine guns all over the place.

Of course, the smaller the venue, the less it takes to make it looked packed. But no trip to the Anarchy Library is complete without going behing the bar to load in your equipment and finding the whole entire back alley is a garbage dumping ground! Bob and Laura and I just looked around in a sort of daze and held our nose (for once the wierd smell wasn't coming from Bob, or maybe it just covered it up!) and watched our step. It was like they came and took the dumpster and left the trash on the ground.

Well, it is Downey, home of, well I'm not quite sure except for the really old McDonalds on Florence Ave.

The Sexy Apes played before us, an all-girl power trio that includes the obligitory male Farfisa player! Very young band, almost ridiculously so, it made me envious. But they rocked and they were friendly, after their show the drummer somehow thanked me for letting them play. I said, "Yeah, sure, whenever."

Not only that, they saved our asses big time. About the time we're all tuned up and ready to go, Laura lets out a shriek and says "I forgot my power cord!" You hate to hear this. It's not too much different than hearing the person who's cutting the lines of blow say "Oops!" Anyhow, this precipitated a mad rush of Laura running around trying to find a replacement. The Sexy Apes were still in the back alley savoring the environment when I steered Laura out there and, lo and behold, they had one to lend. (To be fair, so did the promoter, so we were covered either way, but the girls are prettier, and we needed a way to force them to watch us anyway!)

I didn't hesitate, I just went right into it. "Welcome to Bellflower!" I bellowed out. When a few derisive jeers emanated from the audience I continued. "Yes, I know we're in Downey, we spent all damn day driving around looking for the fucking fabric softener plant." (Hell, you should hear my jokes when we play in Corona)

So then we raged, and I mean we raged ladies and gentlemen. Reliable eyewitnesses reported that we had the entire venue engaged as we blew through our Warped Tour Special - "Homo" "Band" "Jello Ball" "Asshole For Rock and Roll" "Taco Truck" "No Pussy Tonight" "Best Ass in Rock and Roll" "Me and My Drug Problem" and "Your Girlfriends Ugly". I decided to shelve "Drunkfest" and "You Suck" for the night and go with all the breadwinners and it proved to be a provident move (although someone yelled "You Suck" at us, but they were just being nice).

The problem, if you want to call it that, began after I brought out the tortillas. Our good friend Chris A gifted me with a couple of .99 Store bags and I was whipping them around and I heard the promoter going, "Oh no, not tortillas!" This confused me. I mean, this ain't exactly the Crown Plaza here you know, nor the Press. Why the hell would he care about tortillas and the ensuing mess? And besides, is this not the Anarchy Library punk rock showcase?

Whatever the deal was, I was obligated to engage the audience in some tortilla flinging madness. In 20 years I haven't found anything better than tortillas to get people's attention.

Our next problem was the "drunk" guy, who stood right in front of me the whole damn time, another problem with the "no stage" stage. There are boundaries you know, but this guy, or "Kevin" as he was known to some, kept crossing that boundary. For a moment I thought I was at Mr. T's Bowl, well known for it's somtimes dubious audience interaction. Kevin was a trooper though, being just drunk and obnoxious to, for example, eat the tortillas and then spit them out at me and then invading my territory so he could replenish his supply - but never going far enough so that I would have to slug the guy and start a riot.

What I mostly didn't like about this guy is he was obstructing my view to the audience and he wouldn't even get out of the way on "Ass". In any case, the crowd was just nutso about us, and I brought out the brown and red cake icing and made like I was eating my own shit and rubbing it all over myself, and we did the Panda Man thang, and the wrestling thang, and finished to wildly ecstatic ovation.

Man, that never gets old!

Afterwards, the first thing the Sexy Apes said to us was, "I'm glad we didn't have to play after you!" They're from Long Beach and I immediately exhorted them to line us up a gig out there - I've been promising Watkins for months and months to get an L.B. show. And they were like, "hell yeah dude!" or something like that. Let me tell you why that is so damn cool and important to the band, and to me on a personal level.

I'm 44 years old. I'm about as stupid-ass poverty-level dirt poor as I could possibly be, and it's been that way for longer than I care to admit. I have no money, no car, no social life to speak of. Christ, I watch "24" religiously! So when the band can go and play a gig with kids half our age and these same kids come up to us afterwards and are just going off like we were Led Zeppelin or something, even if we're only doing it for free drinks (we sure as hell didn't get paid), that fucking rocks, there is no other way to describe it.

Of course, at the same time I was cleaning up tortilla shards from the "stage". Normally I would say the hell with that, but I liked the Anarchy Library, even if the promoter was acting a bit too wuss for me regarding the mess. It's punk rock, dude, get over it! But, he still invited us to come back. I sure as hell hope so! (However, you have to pay us next time, I mean the tortillas aren't free you know, although this time they were)

Afterwards, I additionally basked in the fact that the crowd stayed a bit scattered and disengaged for the final act (translation: we cleared the place out), the Heartworms, even though I sat in front and enjoyed them. At the end they did "Schwarzenegger Uber Alles" which was funnier than hell, and we chatted with them in the back alley afterwards.

Oddly enough, the singer revealed something that I thought was telling, and it kind of shot another hole in the promo pack mentality so prevalent at venues in So Cal (as we brilliantly come full circle in this silly and rambling post). These guys had played the Knitting Factory a couple times, including their first ever gig. How did they do it, you ask? (well I did) Brilliant demo? Big-money resources? Compromising photos? Solid rep? Nope, none of those.

He was crashing out on the floor of one of the employees!

That's how it's done in the big city folks!

CHOW

AS POMONA TURNS
Things were just too weird that night, I couldn't even drive the 5 miles to the gig without getting all kinds of symbolic metaphors heaved at me. First there was the traffic stop on Indian Hill. I always manage to avoid these, and I would have gotten around this one too except I insisted on going the scenic route. But Claremont PD had everyone shut down at the border. Normally these are Intoxication stops - the cops are trying to find out if you are too drunk to drive. This one I wasn't so sure. With the elevated alert and all they may have been looking for terrorists. Anyhow, I don't drink before a gig, and I have one of those brand new driver's licenses, with the double pictures and holograms and so forth. Outside of the wait (which allowed me to listen to more of The Who "Live at Leeds") it wasn't much of a hassle.

So I wound my way down to Holt and then over to East End and down to Mission. You pass all these restaurants and buildings and so forth and I at least always try to run down in my mind what they once were. For instance the Tacos Mexico at Holt and East End was for many years the Olympic Flame but even before that it was a Van De Kamps. I went there in elementary school with Van Korlaar for his birthday.

Even still, as I approached Garey Ave. I was not prepared for what I was going to see, something I didn't think I would ever see in Pomona and when I did see it I thought I was in the wrong place but no, in the place where for about 30 years has been a vacant lot, was now a big huge building boasting a bright green Starbuck's sign. Starbucks. So apparently everything in Pomona is going so peachy that citizens can afford to pay $3 for lattes and so forth. I make coffee at home, for about 3 cents a cup, it's what poor people do, so I was heartened now that so close to the Arts Colony that the quality of life had ratcheted up a notch.

But what disturbed me even more was when I turned onto 3rd St and drove past the old PVA (where we played twice with the Red Hot Chili Peppers in the 80s) was the brightly lit restaurant on the right. It couldn't be! The legendary Chung King Chinese food place was gone! Honestly, that place has been a big piece of crap going all the way back to the 60s, but the fact that it remained into the 21st century had always filled me with joy and a deep seated suspicion that some other shady dealings kept the damn place open. Now it's a Casa Jimenez. The food is probably better but - BORING!

As usual, 2nd St and vicinity were teeming with young punk rockers. About a hundred or so of them were milling about outside the Glass House. I couldn't tell if they were waiting to go in or completely shut out. I parked it and went in the venue and talked to Rolo. To my credit, I had fixed the gig so that we would play third instead of last. I have decided that the band will not play a final slot, if we can help it, ever again.

Things were running smoothly. In fact, the first band, Grave for the Fireflies, not only went on right at 9:00, they only played 15 minutes! The second band, Bobot Andrenaline, would be on by 9:30 or so. Then the drummer of Bobot came up to me and introduced himself as Mike, the former drummer of Andy's Cornfield, a band we gigged with back in 1999, once at the Old Town Pub. That was the infamous gig where the Panda Man got COMPLETELY NAKED! (It only happened once folks) I reminded Mike of that and he had no problem recalling it. I guess it's not something you forget! And he still admitted he knew me! Now he's in Bobot.

I cruised outside for a while and mingled a bit with the punks down at the record store down the street. I found a record that was actually titled "Too Dumb To Quit" which is one of our emblems. Then I saw a flyer for a Glass House show on Sunday night with Guttermouth and, third billed, Madcap. Ha! Madcap was the "barbeque" band on the 2001 Warped Tour. After the show is over for the day, a designated band hauls out a barbeque and cooks up burgers and such for the whole Warped crew. They get no money for it and their only compensation is a chance to play on the Warped "second" stage. You could always tell Madcap on the road, they were the ones with the barbeque hitched to one of their cars. One night we shared a motel with them in Dumfries Virginia. They didn't know we were there until the next morning, when I saw them in the lobby and joked, "Yeah dude, we were going to roust you in the middle of the night and force you to cook us something." They didn't think that was all that funny.

I wouldn't either. Being the Warped barbeque band is supposedly a good strategic move on that circuit - showing you can tough it out and be a good little indie band. But, according to the flyer, although these guys are still toughing it out, it doesn't appear they have catapulted up to the big time yet. There's lots of problems with the "indie" circuit and that's one of them. But I digress.

So as I'm heading back to the show, I walk past this gorgeous punk rock chick who was walking with a girl in a wheelchair and we looked at each other and it was my friend Jenn, who I hadn't seen in over 3 years! They were there to see Defiance but couldn't get in. I invited them over to our show, but they had called a taxi to come pick them up at 10:45. For a brief mili-second, back when we actually considered doing such a thing, Jenn was going to try out to be the new D-Squad chick singer, replacing our beloved Becky Hamm. It didn't turn out that way, and she had seemingly fallen off the face of the earth, but there she was, cruising around Pomona, still a punk rock fashion goddess. I sure hope it won't be three years before I see her again.

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE SHOW
Things weren't looking too good. I mean, I was stoked, seeing Jenn, and I immediately saw Laura, who also knows her and who I thought would be just as stoked as I was, but she was all weirded out because she had just missed Duvalier the Impentrable, some bizarre circus dude she met years ago at the Kohoutek festival. She told him he was on the "list" but he got there before she did and wasn't and now she was there and he was gone. Of course, she was grousing about the whole gig now, as it was unfortunately living up to its "Tank Gig Saturday" name. But when she mentioned something about it not mattering because she didn't want to be "embarrassed" I wanted to start screaming at her myself. If a gig is becoming so embarrassing and you're tired of it, you can do two things: quit or make it better. Of course, quitting is kind of harsh and making it better is kind of tough, so I guess it's far easier to make sarcastic remarks and always make someone else take the blame. That's usually the Panda Man, natch. The Panda Man has to take the blame for everything.

Okay, so admittedly this gig was a tank, but is it all our fault? I mean, there were four, count em, four bands on the bill, and it didn't seem like any of them brought anybody. I mean I know the Squad has no draw anymore, like we ever did, but it's pretty much common knowledge that our strategy is to hop on the backs of younger bands that bring in tons of kids and, you know, steal their crowd. Hell, we coulda had fucking Madcap on the bill, let em headline and I doubt that would have done much to help out.

And what can you say about the Glass House and the couple hundred punks hanging outside there with nothing to do. What happened to the trickle down theory? A few punks did crash the doors at 51 Bucks but it was only to use the pisser!

So there we were, and at least I had had the foresight to not play last, with only Andy and Jason there to see us, and some girl who Rolo had to convince to stay, and about 3 other people. This was our crowd. I didn't know what to do. Really, our show works better when there's a crowd. What's the point of throwing a bunch of tortillas when there's only half a dozen people in the audience to throw them back at you. Plus, I felt bad for Ian, who had to pay a $30 upgrade on a plane ticket because he forgot about this gig. On the other hand, he had just participated the day before in the annual "Upchuck" golf tournament, which is every bit as graphic as its name indicates. Let's say Ian was lagging a bit.

Then I got Bob in trouble. We're all set up and eager to get the damn thing overwith but Laura's disappeared into the bathroom and taking forever to do whatever so I tell Bob to stick his head and perhaps hurry the process along. So Bob does this and next thing I know he's getting yelled at, not by Laura, but by some other chick, who's all calling him a pervert and other choice names!

Finally, we get started. We go with "Drunkfest" and "You Suck" for the hell of it, then I asked the crowd how many of them were seeing us for the first time. A couple people raised their hands. And I thought, you know, as dismal as it all looks, as easy as we could pack it in and play "Hispanics on TV" and a bunch of other old (and "clean") songs that nobody knows except for us and Andy and Jason, but I thought of these two raised hands and realized that they had to see the best the Squad had. Why should they be denied? So we do "Band" and "Jello Ball" and then I noticed over by the bar that, incredibly, THREE CHICKS had entered 51 Bucks and were there to see the show.

So the tortillas flew, and we got Bob to take off his shirt, and I showed everyone my ass and brought out the gunk and we did the wrestling match, just like there were 2000 people inside. And at the end, it no longer seemed like a tank gig after all. Even Allison had showed up, too late because I told her we weren't going on till eleven, but still. I've said it before and I will likely have to say numerous more times, but it's not how a band plays in front of lots of people - hell, that's easy - it's how they play in front of almost no one. If it's the same way they play in front of lots of people, you really have to give them credit, because that my friends is the toughest gig of all.

NOT G G ALLIN AGAIN
The first person to greet us after the show was the girl who yelled at Bob. She was in Writing Class Rick's band, Goosewind (no relation to Hawkwind, we think), and she loved the show, although she still gave Bob a ton of shit.

Then I wandered out to chat with the girls who walked in off the street. The reviews were mostly positive, it turned out they were from San Diego and they had the kindness to lie and say, "We came out to see you!" However, the one with the red streaks in her hair was adamant that even though the Panda mask was cool, I should lose the gunk. I disagreed and somewhere along the line G G Allin's name was evoked, because when I'm all gunked up that's who I remind a lot of people of. I first started hearing this on the Warped Tour, when I didn't even know who the fuck G G Allin was. Now I do, and as I was explaining to the girls, it's all a big coincidence, which they had a hard time believing.

And the one with the red streaks kept at it, kept pushing this G G Allin nonsense at me, like if I was going to do something like that I should do real blood and so forth.

"Look, I don't have a death wish, okay. I do cake icing because sauteed mushrooms didn't do it for me. Besides, on film chocolate syrup looks just like blood." (That's true, by the way)

So then she mentioned how I needed to perhaps "sacrifice" more in the name of my art, and I'm like "Whoa Nellie!"

"If you don't think playing a gig in front of 5 people is a sacrifice, I can't help you." She was a pain in the ass, especially because her friends were not nearly so discriminating about the show as she was and, had she not been there, perhaps would have been easily convinced to lick the Panda Man clean after the show.

Alas, it was not to be, what a shock. Goosewind followed us, sort of. By that time, everyone had left, practically. It didn't appear that they had one damn person come to see them. I don't get it, I really don't. But they played some kind of Hawkwind type song and then, get this, they took a smoke break! Hell, D-Squad has never even done that, not that they wouldn't attempt it.

And though I didn't hear it, all the others were going on about the one guy who, on his way out, had this to say about the show,

"Where else can you go and get a $5 lap dance?"

Well, Tijuana, for one, but that's a long long ways off!