Book release and youth homeless services fundraiser!
Grindcore for the youth!
The show is this Saturday! If you haven’t picked up your copy of Children Chasing Tigers or the “Nicolas Cage Must Die VNDP (Van Nuys Drunk Punks)” t-shirt, you can pick some up there!
On a budget? Hurting for cash? Don’t trip, potato chip! We’ll be raffling some away—along with Frontier Records LPs and Red Zone gift certificates! (If it’s too step of an entry fee, hmu. It’s a fundraiser, but we also don’t wanna turn people away).
So get ready to have your ears assaulted by San Fernando Valley’s own grindcore bands: Bad Acid Trip, MENK and Flesh Eater!
So why did I pick these bands, writers, stores, record labels, venue and youth homeless organization for the show?
‘Cuz most of them are from the San Fernando Valley, my lovely-hateful hometown and the inimitable setting of the novel.
Why Bad Acid Trip? Well, some of us punks/metalheads/crusties used to kick it with Bad Acid Trip back in the day, hanging out during rehearsal or tagging along to shows. Although grindcore and extreme metal is dope and all, it can get repetitive. But not these guys. Some of their shit is straight up insane. OK, so if I had to describe them, I’d say picture Faith No Morea group of misfit metalheads, hopped up on meth who escaped an insane asylum and play grindcore.
Why Jim Fucking Ruland? Because not only is he a good writer, he comes from punk, he is punk! So it’s a treat to have a prolific author, essayist and lifelong punk rocker, ladies and gentlemen! A great way to compliment the show and its literary punk stylings!
Why Frontier Records? Because what other label can claim credit for releasing not one, not two, not three, but loads of debut records of legendary punk and deathrock bands like Christian Death, Adolescents, Circle Jerks, T.S.O.L., and Suicidal Tendencies. I mean, c’mon!
Why MENK? Well, not just because they’re mostly based in the San Fernando Valley but because they’re brutal and, like Bad Acid Trip, original. They mix it up with some surprisingly crusty-emo-punk melodies (like one of my favorites, Tragedy), but based in good old fashioned traditional death metal and grindcore. Oh, and they’re really into Bigfoot for some reason.
Why Flesh Eater? Because they’re sick-ass foos from the Valley/Palmdale, grinding into the new generation of technical-death-grind extreme metal. Gotta give love to up-and-coming bands. This is gonna be their first show!
Why Red Zone? Because my friends and I have been going there (to their new location in Van Nuys and to their former location at the hood-ass Panorama City mall) for shit-you-not almost 30 years! That’s where we used to get some of our patches, studs for our jackets or hoodies, band t-shirts, manic panic hair dye and Doc Martens. Not really a store, more like a cornerstone of our youth.
Why Midnight Hour Records? Because there is no other venue and record shop in the Valley that is doing more, not just for the community, but for the newer generations of young rocker foos—which is what the book is supposed to be about. Nowhere else are they working as hard in keeping the subcultural rock scene alive, firmly based in supporting oppressed communities (a refreshing new twist in the scene), and thriving throughout the San Fernando Valley.
Why the Village Family Services? Because there aren’t too many bilingual youth-focused shelters and homeless services based in the Valley. We once had Children of the Night (for youth who have been sexually exploited) way back when, which I actually wanted to contribute to but discovered they had closed down their Van Nuys shelter years ago.
So it’s the San Fernando Valley that ties it all together. But why? Why the Valley?
Because the Valley, all the working people from different backgrounds—Chicano/Mexican, Central American, Black, White—particularly the youth who go through the trials and tribulations, dangers, abuse, who abandon their families or families who abandon them, beauty, hope, trauma, porn shoots, drug deals gone bad, street kids and cholos, victims victimizing more victims, buffed-over Aztec murals, dead homies at Olive View hospital, buried loved ones at Valhalla cemetary in North Hollywood. All that.
See y’all at the show!
I'll be there!!