rgers
Clockwise from Upper Left: Thrasher
swimsuit model Ray Stevens. Rock king
Salba and his comrades. Chris, Spock,
Keith and Paul perpetuate the H.O.W
mondo mystique. Taters goes a-huntin'
for da big beat. Scene maker Mr. Big
under the influence of skate rock. Lam-
pin and skawampin
Tommy style. Hair
sauce 100. Multi-media
mogul/facial contor
tionist B.Ware. Danny
O., monster bass-
head, gives a free
peep show. Two
ragers. Gadget and
his teeth. Can you
find your mom in
the crowd? Monster
Gary-half Jimmy
Burt
Page, half Eddie Van Halen. MC K.T. flashes a grin.
A rampaging Lopes commands the chaos.
Thiebaud and MCM get snuggly. Baba "Your
Burger's Ready" Chennelle kicks bass.
Snapshots by MCM
It was a night to remember-1 only wish I
could. Luckily they gave me two cameras and
a tape recorder to help re-create the sordid
scene of high-volume ear-inferno cranked-up
balls-out one-hundred-proof stupid dumbness.
It all started with his imperial highness-
steaming gleaming screaming Lord Salba and
his wholly unwholesome hot and heavy
friends. Steve and his boys unleashed frothing
mad-dog power chords as the DNA filled up
with types, tenders and assorted trouble
makers. Babies screamed, mothers wept,
paint peeled and Ray Stevens dropped his
pants at the sight of the leather-clad Salbites
and their plush mohair drums. Unconfirmed
rumors of psilocybin abuse by certain band
members floated about, mingling with the
already dense humid haze of cigarette smoke
and imported hair care products. Hips were
grinding by the end of the Badlanders'
righteous rockin' set and somewhere six feet
under (or deeper), Bon Scott was grinning his
twisted, whiskey-soaked grin.
Next up was the plaid-clad, def-ervescent,
pimptastic one-man rhyme factory known as
Skatemaster Tate Pumpin' and thumpin'.
Taters and his concrete cohorts locked into the
stoniest of stone-cold grooves, instigating
mucho movement in the steadily swelling
sweating swilling mob. D.J. E-Z Brown served
a heapin' helpin' of smoked vinyl while Tate's
scantily clad assistant/dancing nymph gyrated
wildly to the funky chrome drum kit beat.
Girlfriends winced and palms grew sweaty as
doubts were raised over the existence of
undergarments beneath the whirling sex-
kitten's ultra-mini-mini-skirt. The sea of glazed
pupils visible from my perch on the second
level told a frightening tale. Either the house
was filled with rheumy-eyed cataract victims
or the crowd had already reached a fervor level
usually reserved for Moonies, Niner fans and
televangelists. Tate and his hip-hop crusaders
finished boomin' the room, and pilgrimage to
liquid mecca began.
Pavement lovers were still pouring in
through the front door, some from as close as
the Fillmore district, others from as far away
as San Jose, L.A., and even Ketchikan, Alaska.
The bartenders tore back and forth, flinging
beers through the haze that was now as thick
as plasma. They should have been handing
out Ritalin instead. The lights dimmed, the
phony I.D. carrying peroxide head next to me
screamed, and the vert-craving amp-cranking
fiddle-picking shit-kicking scourge of San
Francisco's meanest streets stomped on stage.
That's House Of Wheels, wheelheads. By this
time, there was more tattoo ink, sweat, and
rock and roll hand-gestures in the club than
there was common sense. Bodies careened
into each other like loose bearings in a Cadillac
wheel at Signal Hill. By the third song, Paul
Casteel, H.O.W's resplendent chief crooner
and master dog trainer, was approaching sanc-
tified stadium-rock demi-godness. Buoyed by
the band's solid steel full moon tidal sound
swell, Paul pumped hearts and turned heads
with his star-spangled spandex pants and
rhinestone-studded vocal chords. The Wheels
oozed, crunched, scraped and schralped their
way through a raunchy, fire-spitting set that
left three people unconscious and everyone
else begging for more (except the guy who had
been staring at the 3-D neo-neon E. Chandoha
original Skate-Rock poster for an hour).
We were supposed to go on stage in fifteen
minutes and somehow I had mutated into a
walking barley sump-pump with Zildjian cym-
bals for ears and tattered Disney flip-books for
optic nerves. I had only one chance to retain
coherence for the next hour-raise the toxin
level in my bloodstream till the pollutants over-
came the oxygen and I became a jacked-up
bored-out pure-ethanol-burning maniac street
machine. We took the stage in our hand-
crafted Village People of the 90's costumes,
stumbling over dead soldiers, dodging ice and
other projectiles hurled from the teeming pit
of sub-humanity. As we started playing, the bar
started handing me shots of Cuervo....
What happened after that is hazy as a tweed
suit in a grit storm. I remember Baba, our multi-
faceted drummer, had a whole barbecued
chicken on a spit inside his foil-lined bass
drum/convection oven and Gary, our lead
guitarist, headwalked from the stage to the bar
during our rendition of Godzilla. I'm pretty sure
the whole place turned into a gigantic electric
petri dish full of mindless amoebas, squirming
and writhing in a dangerously unsterile cell
growth medium, and I know for a fact they had
to mop the walls when the show was over.
I'll say no more-complete
knowledge of this depraved event
would only lead to personality
trauma and flaming goat-skull
nightmares. Ed's still here, but the
story's done so I'm leaving to
replace my kidneys with an oil filter,
grip tape and some used photo
developing fluid. Later.