Trevor Henthorn - Sweat Engine - Industrial band

this was great to visit again with Trevor. So great talking about SOMA in the early days !

this is from the Union and Metro podcast . link below 

https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-union-and-metro-podcast-95641598/episode/rewind-episode-trevor-henthorn--sweat-engine-industrial-music-legend--307082821?cmp=ios_share&sc=ios_social_share&pr=false

#punkrock #punkrocker #sandiego #industrialmusic #sweatengine #industrial #goth #jermaddams #thewasteaways #musichistory #punrockscene #punkrockhistory #podcast #podcaster #Diy #jermwarfareproductions #skateboards #artist #redrumskates #halloween #mars #museum #haunted #oddities #bassguitar #bassplayer #unionandmetropodcast https://youtube.com/@jermaddams?si=4bjqYtyh3tUaPCUd https://open.spotify.com/album/6WxUfbKnAAtKiNDphjHvmT?si=hM7myq-RQ0qtRIvskClG8A https://www.instagram.com/jerm_addams?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ%3D%3D&utm_source=qr

Transcript

SPEAKER_06 0:04

You've reached the Union of Metro Street podcast where we discussed the San Diego music scene of the late 80s and all of the 90s, from the shows we worked to the shows we played. Here we go.

SPEAKER_05 1:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Trevor, how you been? I've been I've been good. It's funny now that I listened to this because, you know, I I did choose a career in music. So, you know, here we are, and it's it's okay. I'm still alive. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:22

Yeah. Speaking of, I mean we're gonna we're gonna go through the roots, but what what are you doing now?

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Like um, uh I work up at uh at UCSD. I work in the music department. Oh, okay. So it's it's mostly tech stuff, but I'm around music, you know, 50, 80 hours a week or whatever. And it's uh, you know, San Diego has has changed so much in the last 30 years. I mean, we got this trolley thing now and a new amphitheater, outdoor amphitheater just opened up upstair up up north there. And uh yeah, it's it's it's cool. I'm I'm happy to be here. Yeah. And you weren't you doing uh do you do Adam Street Fair or Oh producing? No, no. I uh you know I did the uh Sweat Engine was my first sort of you know touring underground electronic, you know, band, and I got hooked into the Tijuana scene for a while. Okay. Did this uh below San Onofre compilation, uh started playing Tijuana quite a bit, uh hooked into Samba. So I'm a you know originally a trumpet player but got into electronics and percussion and then naturally you know percussion samba and got into tyco for a while and uh you know sweat engine faded out with our lyricists, two of them, Timo and Mark, yeah, going on their own way. But you know, I've been doing electronic stuff, solo stuff, and then I've got a um a partner I play with in Berlin. We've got this ongoing group that's Luis's called Aesthetic Meat Front, and that's just nice, you know, piercing and blood and horrific things. Yeah. Sort of the extension of what industrial could be if you could, you know, if you could do everything that you wanted to do. Right. You know, San Diego you can't do, you know, fire, nudity, blood, all that stuff. So this is, you know, that.

unknown 3:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

But tried tried back in the day with Crash Worship, but Oh man, love love those guys. I mean, I I love anything that's like lots of drums and lots of people to watch. Right. Um we tried fire a few times and uh uh had some accidents and you know, but you know, we did breaking stuff, which was always lots of fun. You know, I'd go to Goodwill and pick up, you know, a bunch of plates and you know, whatever.

SPEAKER_03 3:58

Yeah. It was fun. It was dramatic. And we're gonna get into that too, but let's let's go back to what got you in music to begin with, like at what age and because I know we've we've talked about this before. You know, skateboarding was part of just it was just our lifestyle. Yeah. But then at what point did you start getting into music and then let's start with that?

SPEAKER_01 4:18

You know, it's it's a good lesson because you know, I'm in fifth grade or going into fifth grade, and uh, you know, my mom worked in the school, and she's like, you know, she played guitar and she's like, You want to do music? And I'm like, Yeah, sure. And uh I didn't really know much about what that meant doing music. Right. Uh we had a music teacher that came to our elementary school, and she said, Well, I can I can borrow a trumpet from a friend. Because, you know, we weren't, you know, we had skateboard money, but we didn't have you know instrument money. Right, right. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if that makes sense. No, it totally does. It totally does. You know, so I I didn't even really give it any thought. I'm like, sure, I do that. And you know, the the music teacher would come by and you know, the trumpets would meet on one day and the flutes would meet on another day, and you know, we did this for a year, and at the end of the year there was a concert, and it just it just that was my life. You know, okay, you practice every day, you know. Then it became, you know, I'm in band class through high school, um, band uh Renaissance fairs. So I got involved in the Renaissance fair, and uh they said, Oh, we you know, are there any trumpet players in the house? Or whatever they say in their Elizabethan accent. And I'm like, Yeah, I can do this. And they're like, Okay, we're you know, we're gonna pay you this month. And I'm like, wait, I'm getting paid? Wow. Oh yeah, oh yeah, and here's your costume, here's your trumpet, just show up and do this thing. And I'm like, I I'm finally a professional working musician, so I played Renaissance fairs, Harold Trumpet for the horse tournaments for a long time, and then that's what got me into drumming. Um because trumpet's like play this thing and then wait for an hour. And and my my good friend Steve says, you know, he played drums and uh he's like, Oh, you know, why don't you just you know bring a drum and when you're not playing trumpet, you can play drums. So I did uh side drum for a long time, marching drum. And you know, coming into moving to San Diego to to go to college and then getting involved in the radio station here, I really got interested in electronic music and then also the drumming thing. So um, you know, the the rig that I set up was um electronic percussion. Um I actually brought one of the pads, maybe I'll pull it out later. Yeah, it's one of the pads that was at every Soma show. Okay, it still works. I'm I'm blown away. It's caught on fire a few times, it's covered in paint. Uh but that's you know, it's that's sort of the history. It starts with, you know, mom saying, you know, you know, here's this thing. Okay, you know, 20 years of practicing, getting involved in in performing live, and also, you know, costuming and and theatrics. That that was such a big part of what became Sweat Engine, which was um, you know, we're putting on a show, circus, costuming, lots of percussion, electronics, and Mark and eventually Timo's contribution, which is you know, I'm pissed off at everything, the world, uh, the system. You know, you look at all of our lyrics from those days, you know, songs like, you know, shit for brains and uh uh you know, the police uh brutality that was going on in LA, you know, pissed off at the system because of that. Um every once in a while I'd come up with ideas like, you know, hey Mark, can you write a song called Waiting to Die? Because that's how I'm feeling right now. And you know, he was really good at, you know, he'd just sit down and he'd write the song, and my whole contribution was the music and you know, the chorus. Right. That's what I did. And you know, Timo and Mark brought the you know, the real anger and frustration at the universe. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:25

And so when did you guys come up with the name and like actually form as a band? Because I didn't, you know, I didn't get into about you guys until later 89.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

Yeah, so I came to San Diego in eighty-five and immediately started working at KSDT, that's uh UCSD's radio station. Yeah. And Mark was a year younger than me, he came in eighty-six, and we hooked up pretty quickly. You know, we both skated, he did uh freestyle biking, I did unicycling. Um, eventually we started doing the mobile DJ thing. Right. The two of us. Uh as through the radio station, eventually we formed our own business and started making decent money DJing primarily frat parties. Oh, wow. And uh, you know, so we were buying, you know, that was back when you go to warehouse and you'd buy your vinyl. So every Friday we're at the warehouse buying vinyl. Maybe we'd head down to Soma, you know, we'd be at Soma at, you know, Friday or uh Saturday. Uh, but we were DJing a lot of parties. And like everything Mark does, uh, you know, he started getting pissed off at that scene. You know, we were when we played as a band, you know, we're treated like royalty. Right. And and um I still remember, you know, uh this one week we played five shows in a week, three over a weekend. We played Soma, we did this music technology festival, and we played with Nine Inch Nails down in in Tijuana. And the next week we had a frat party, and these guys were treating us like garbage. Yeah and and uh Mark put on ministry or something like that, and some frat guy came up and was giving him all sorts of attitude. And you know, Mark's over six feet tall, and he doesn't put up with anyone's nonsense, and it was just he took the needle on the record and just scratched it off and went under the microphone and he goes, Well, I guess there's you know no musical taste here, so we're gonna go back to playing your frat crap. And I was like, Okay, we're not gonna be doing this for much longer, but uh it was it was a real evolution of you know, trying to be DJs and be a service environment, and then you know, different day of the week were you know we've got all access passes and you know we're up on stage in front of you know downstairs Soma was what 100 or 150 people, something like that max. You know, and iguana's was 2200, I think. Yeah. And you know, you go back and forth and yeah, we shut down our DJ business, but it was nice having all that gear, you know. We um being uh having a lot of percussion on stage, we needed a loud monitoring system. And some of I guess you guys had monitors, I don't know, but we brought our own uh kinda. The PA was good. Um uh, you know, I liked it. Uh so we'd bring our DJ PA to put on stage so that we could hear what was going on because we're trying to play with sequences, and man, try to play acoustic drums downstairs in Soma with you know, trying to sync up with the sequence.

SPEAKER_03 11:46

It was a giant echo chamber and plus the stage. Remember, you're basically in that meat locker, yeah. Stage is awesome, ten feet, I mean ten feet, ten inches tall or something, with a low ceiling. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 11:58

Did you even need a PA system in the dungeon?

SPEAKER_01 12:01

I mean, that's well for electronic music, absolutely. Yeah. So I'd go down, I remember I'd go down and get there as early as Len would let me in because I needed to go through and uh EQ my stuff because you know we're doing you know low subs and uh these kinds of things that normally you wouldn't have on a you know a traditional band reinforcement system. And you know, I have no formal training in all this. I mean I I took electronics classes and I can play trumpet, but it wasn't like you go to school to learn live sound. I mean, you you just do it and when it breaks, you fix it. And I was I remember I was so proud because I'm like, yeah, we really need someone to mix. And uh uh we had a guy that just funded our album, and I'm like, how about you you mix our show? And I'm like, I invented this thing, it's a long cable so that we can put the mixer out front and uh we send all the channels to the mixer out front, and you can mix from where the audience is. I'm like, I thought that invented this. And I don't know if it was you or someone else that said, Well, you know, that's what we've got here, because you know, we had so much um we ran a lot of our stuff through uh, you know, this just massive, very expensive sampler, and and yeah, I ran uh you know two or three line level things, and then we put effects on all the vocals, so we had guitar effects processors that somehow needed to get into the house system. So, you know, we were one of the few uh bands, if that's what you call it, that's uh, you know, we tried to mix everything ourselves because the traditional environment didn't really support that idea of oh, you got a bunch of drum machines and pedals and stuff like that. Yeah, right. Yeah, and I didn't know what a DI box is, and nobody had them anyway.

SPEAKER_06 14:02

So I was gonna bring that up. I'm pretty sure uh because I think Sammy was probably doing the sound back then, right?

SPEAKER_03 14:10

Yeah, Sam would have been doing it upstairs, but in the the downstairs stuff, we had a booth that was kind of well, it was against the wall, so Mike would be there, but it was so dark anyways. Was Mike doing the downstairs or yeah, every now and again he would be, but it wasn't really doing sound. Yeah, Mike Nevison. But if when they would come in, there was just so much extra stuff, it wasn't as easy to wear. I mean, like it your traditional punk band was easy because you just plug and play. Yeah, you didn't need to mic the drums. They had so much on the medicine, yeah. And I do remember that before because I was learning and I was so intrigued by how they were getting so much sound and so much chaos, and it was just the energy was so much greater, but to be able to get it mixed right, and then you got Nevison is just kind of standing going. 'Cause back then he was doing dance macabre. So again, you know, really straightforward. You remember Mike with the really long blonde hair and uh security guy. So it was a bit of um it was a learning experience.

SPEAKER_06 15:20

And you guys did a lot of industrial back back then too, right?

SPEAKER_03 15:25

Yeah. Um when they would come in when, you know, the main floor, like me beat manifesto and those shows, they would have their own people. But um as far as like where these guys came from and doing it downstairs. Downstairs was a difficult room. It was good and moody. I loved it. I just I absolutely loved it.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

So well it was it was a very special space in that there was a downstairs and an upstairs. And um I'm not aware of at the time any other club that did something like this. And what it allowed for was, you know, I used to go a lot because I could go down, check out the band. If I didn't like it, I'd go upstairs and dance, you know, traditional, you know, electronic dance music of of that generation. You know, you dance for two or three songs, go back downstairs, see if the band has done something more interesting, or or maybe it's a different band. You know, they used to book several different genres. It would be like, you know, an industrial band and a you know, red-hot chili pepper style. I think we called it San Diego Funk or something like that. There were a lot of those in the early 90s. And um, you know, maybe a punk band. That's you know, before the hardcore scene really took off, you know, it was just traditional punk for the most part. And I really like that environment, that ability to go to a club and and not go, oh, this band sucks. I guess we gotta leave, right? That's or you go to a club like the LA clubs, and it's like, oh, we got a goth room and we got an industrial room and we got a you know a punk room, and you go, All right, so it's three DJs, and what happens when the band plays? Oh, we you know, we shut off the goth room and force all the goths to listen to you know, industrial. And it's like none of this makes sense. And I loved, you know, as a a patron, you know, Mark and I would go and we'd hang out at Soma because it was, you know, if we got bored with both the band and the DJ, we'd stand outside and talk to Len and he'd give us, you know, words of wisdom on how to be a a better band or how to, you know, keep the audience. And as a band, I didn't want people hanging out at our show if they didn't want to see it. And I was used to playing, you know, we got hooked into clubs like Sub Nation and some of the others that are primarily goth. And the Goths didn't like us. I mean, we were we were angry men, you know, playing aggressive music, and um we'd have you know primarily male audience or um the military. So we get a lot of the the Marines would come and uh get a little carried away. You know, no, it's it was fine. That was the audience.

SPEAKER_06 18:18

They didn't get violent.

SPEAKER_01 18:19

No, no, they they didn't.

SPEAKER_06 18:21

And of course, of course there was no alcohol served there, right?

SPEAKER_01 18:25

But what was nice about downstairs at Soma is we knew everyone that was in that room was there to see us because if they didn't want to see us, they could go upstairs and and dance to you know, gruesome toosome. I mean, that was the song that was like I characterizes Soma for me, you know. They they play that two or three times a night. And um and so both as a patron and and as a uh band, I I love the downstairs and the you know, there's a stereo PA, uh, you know, big nice subs. Um and uh as far as other percussion went, I mean the one thing I brought was this this is a symbol, it doesn't look like it, but it's a it's a that looks like a tradition. This is a definitely a sweat engine thing. Yeah. So I didn't have you know drums. Uh I got this as a trash can lid and I painted it. And uh this was at every Soma show that we played, and so I didn't have in the beginning I didn't have any cymbals. I had trash can lids. I eventually found a snare at the goodwill that I, you know, sort of reconditioned, but most of our sound was generated by the sampler. It was electronic and electronic percussion, but downstairs were like, okay, you can hit anything and it sounds awesome in this room. Yeah. And so it wasn't like you needed expensive drums to make an interesting sound in downstairs in Soma. Uh the intro that I played, uh, we we eventually had a a kit drummer who was just amazing kit drummer. He was he ran the um what they called party sounds at 91x.

SPEAKER_05 20:11

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:12

And we met him through our relationship with 91x, and uh I'm just an amazing drummer. And I'm like, you know, can't can you just stand up and you know, I'll just give you a couple pads. He's like, No, I play kit. And I'm like, that's a real problem because you know, we're trying to keep this electronic thing going. So I gave him an electronic pedal. I'm like, just don't you know use your acoustic uh kick, you know, he used the electronic pedal, and I eventually gave him electronic hi-hats and stuff like that, and you know, it was pretty good. But man, when he brought his his full kit down uh and he could play every genre, he was a gigging, you know, gigging uh drummer.

SPEAKER_03 20:53

Um it was an awesome just wall of the visual itself was intense to see him playing. We were actually just watching another video earlier and just the visual of when you guys were on stage because of how non-conventional it was, is what I always thought made it brilliant. It was just just like this wall of sound, and you know, for the most part for the layman person that they think industrial, they think of something like nine inch nails or I'm not really versed in all the the genre. And then when I was trying to book book you guys and figure out who to book you with, there was bands like Babyland, like we were talking about, still have a seven inch from them.

SPEAKER_01 21:37

And um before now here's the one thing were you ever in Crash Worship or did you okay I w I went and saw a bunch of their shows and sometime later I had set up my business in uh what was the Wiki Up Cafe out on park, and they still put on events. there. That was such an awesome space. So we had, you know, I had my business up in the upstairs and we set up an internet cafe kind of thing there. That was in you know the late nineties uh by this time. But yeah I loved um Crash Worship and some of the other kind of you know they just come in you know with a bunch of drums do this like chaos no fire. I never saw them with fire but and then leave. Um but we uh you know I had a f a few drummers that played with us and they eventually you know we all got involved in the Burning Man thing for a while. And uh and yeah I mean great great bands that came through there. I mean they're as I I mentioned a little bit earlier, you know, I remember all the bands. A lot of them I met because you know Mark and I worked at the radio station. Right. So we'd either bring them in to do um you know interviews or shows or whatever. A lot of the people at the radio station um Inch and then Grinch I forget which one came first uh Inch with um Stymie. Yeah you know rest in peace and uh you know those guys I met first through the radio station and then they're like oh yeah we're playing Soma come down and I'm like oh yeah come down because I know again I know if I don't like their music I can sort of sneak upstairs like like listen to some Meat Feed or Consolidated or Cruise and Twosome or whatever and uh in ministry of course uh yeah uh I think between the radio station and Soma that was our life back in you know starting in 1990 really was our first shows around Soma and then it it just kind of ramped up with you know okay can you guys play once a month yeah sure and you know we do a flyer design or s someone there would do a flyer design we go down right you know pick up a bunch of flyers and uh you know we'd drop them off at you know off the record a lose or whatever. Yeah and I'd I'd make the rounds that was my my thing you know I was still in school but we were doing pretty good sales of like cassettes and stuff. T-shirts too sold really well at off the record they'd sell anything on consignment.

SPEAKER_05 24:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

So I'd drop off five or ten every week and go pick up the money, drop off flyers, hit all the cafes. Yeah. There weren't that many yeah this is before Starbucks.

SPEAKER_03 24:30

Oh yeah yeah so but Gamma Gamma was still around because that's how I initially got in. But yeah Off the record was the big one and then up north up at Lose Records. But the thing that you know we talked about this before with the other guests is when first started booking shows downstairs the the thing was the club upstairs Mania was the one um but there would be a dance club and it would it would depend on who was kind of doing it at that time. John John was doing what um whoever would be doing it so that's why there would be the dance club upstairs and then I would book downstairs. And then eventually a lot of people don't realize that we even did that at all because the main stage was perfect for a dance club. I mean it was just space all over the place and it was never it would be packed but it wouldn't really be packed. So you still had breathing room and you could kind of stare someone across the room. It it was a it was a different time and then eventually we ended up just doing more and more of the stuff downstairs. Um and then eventually we would do something upstairs and then we started doing more upstairs as we started to get credibility. But we're talking the early early early days. And uh so what was the first time you guys ended up playing on the main stage?

SPEAKER_01 25:54

Because those were f few and far between remember yeah that would have been that was either Frontline assembly or the Meat Beach show one of the two uh the frontline assembly show was the one that was the first show that Tim was and that would have been 91 like late 91 yeah that sounds about right and uh yeah that was I mean that was interesting that the challenge for me is I'd I'd played larger rooms before but when you are in this big rectangle and you're up on stage and you're so trying to hear the the sequence so we're trying to stay in time with you know it's before computers of course yeah so you know either I've got a sample or you know the the Roland D50 is running or whatever we're trying to play to that and you've got the slap back echo yeah against the west wall that's like you know uh 200 250 milliseconds are you know John our drummer he's like oh my god this is driving me insane every time I hit my snare drum I hear an echo you know and uh you know I'm like yeah I I prefer the downstairs uh playing but yeah it was it was a cool show um that was fun because you know we went on first I think Biohazard went on after us and uh Friendline Assembly had their they had these lifeguard towers with all their gear on it and I'm sort of bitter about it because they're like well there's not enough room on the stage for your drummer I'm like what do you mean? I mean you want us to play the show without a drummer? Right and oh and there's not enough room on stage for your guitar player. And I'm like what this is like this is like well this was going back and forth between us and the stage manager and and those guys and it was I just you know I have such fond memories of Lynn stepping in because we had pushed this show so hard on 91x on loudspeaker and we had some proof I don't know if they're the check marks or whatever that said that you know the people were there not necessarily to see us but because of because of your promotion because of our promotion and whatever and uh Len just said you know he he said this and then he said so uh you guys will make room for their drummer you'll make room for the guitar player and poor Ray Ray was uh pain emission from paint emission yeah he started playing guitar with us around that time and Ray's like oh it's not a big deal I don't need to play I'm like dude I mean we're gonna play one of your songs you know yeah he had Bimbo was like one of my favorite paint emission songs and we did a sweat engine rendition of it with you know lots of live drums and and stuff and it was like one of the best uh one of the best songs and uh but yeah good memories and you know for me anyway good memories of Len looking out for us right you know as a as a local band that was truly there to support and bring audience to the you know the touring band. Yeah and uh yeah I think we only played yeah it was just that and then the Meatbeat and Consolidated which was so awesome. Those guys are so cool and they had their um you know their sort of circus style stage antics that that Meatbeat had at the time and Consolidated had their you know gruesome video of you know you gotta become a vegetarian watch this video it'll do it for you. Yeah and it did like yeah it did it for me but I I loved you know playing with those guys and the the upstairs with the second floor balcony was just so cool because people don't really talk about this a lot. I'm I'm kind of short I'm five foot six mark is like six foot something and we go to shows and I'm like I can't see anything yeah you know and you know there's always some guy with a big hat or a girl with a big hat or you know fuzzy hair whatever it is that's like standing in front of me and I can't see shows. So I really like Soma. I could hang out upstairs I could see the band some of the best photos we have from that Meet Beat show are you know people that manage to take photos from behind us. Yeah like you could stand behind the band on stage and uh yeah really really good experience um the other bands I saw there uh we saw Knights or Ebb there didn't play with them but they were upstairs and they were also a you know I really like their music um their stage show was just super clean you know one drum pad two drummers each has a drum pad and like a cymbal and then they had each had their sampler I mean it was like so clean and so and I'm like this is exactly what I don't want to be I want a bunch of crap on stage I want you know it's gotta be dirty and smoky and you want smoke machines and some chaos and but it's a good example of an act that I really like and and the inspiration I got from it was okay I like them but I don't want to be them. Right and uh you know we also saw there was uh Tit Wrench played upstairs too and they were they were an inspiration for Mark. I don't I don't think I'll try to quote what he said but it was another one of those you know Mark you know he's like I I like their music but I don't want to be them I want to do something different than what they're doing type of thing.

SPEAKER_06 31:38

Yeah but it was cool it was it was a good time. That's good you should always try to do something different.

SPEAKER_01 31:45

Yeah and it's um it goes back to that you're putting on a show right you know there's history there's okay people want to see guitar bass drums and they want to listen to songs that they know and as a band that's starting up well if someone doesn't want to listen to you because they don't know your songs, how do you get your songs listened? And this is before the internet so you go okay well you got college radio which was huge for us and we had our claws into every college radio station um in preparation for this I went through our my box of memorabilia and I I found a you know a fax that I had sent out to uh college radio we also sent letters which was weird you know I would I would send cassettes or uh usually we wouldn't send vinyl out to radio because Mark's like yeah they won't listen to it they'll just throw it in the dumpster and he knew that because he did that and um so you know getting people to listen to your music it had to be on vinyl at that time in 1990 and so I think it was the first copy of our record that I got that wasn't the test pressing we had a test pressing but the first you know stamped copy of our four song EP I took down a soma and I gave it to Dax that's Todd who's still he's still around here in San Diego playing and uh he played he I think he just drop listen to the four tracks and he picked the one that sounded most Soma like and it was this song Until Dawn that's you know and with a repetitive until dawn until dawn you know and it was like people dancing. I think they were just listening to that earlier. Yeah. And um I'm like that's cool. I so I you know I gave uh records to the other people uh in town you know I'd go up to them while they're DJing hey here's our album we're already friends you know because we've been hanging out at their club for a while and they're like okay which song should I play? Okay play this one and then eventually you know we played Piranha Room which was a big deal for us because that they didn't really have a lot of live bands there. It was primarily just Dance Club. Yeah and uh so we played there once and they had been spinning that song and so of course you know we booked that as the second song in the set. So the first song is you know like Noise and Chaos and whatever and then the second song is this one and everyone's like you know they get up and dance and you know maybe the song after you know you lose a few people and you lose a few people can be because they don't know it. But it is it was a different time and in learning about you know how do people watch live bands um I can I can actually play that song if you want to be like take a listen to it.

SPEAKER_02 34:50

Some uh sweat engine until dawn here we go that is so classic.

SPEAKER_03 39:18

I can remember the pit in in um in the basement you know in the dungeon and I remember now just hearing that just seeing because once people get moving you know and then you get that pit and then in that room you had to stand between the pillars. But Jerry they would just people would go absolutely ape shit. I mean just freaking ape shit like a hardcore show like you know New York hardcore just swinging arms and oh my God that's so crazy.

SPEAKER_06 39:49

Were the shows you guys did at iguanas were they pretty crazy?

SPEAKER_01 39:52

Um iguanas, you know that was the goth industrial thing. And there wasn't really a you know the dance floor was pretty small so it wasn't like nobody jumping off the third floor? Oh at iguanas no no and you know and there was alcohol so it's a different vibe. But yeah that song was one of the the earliest ones and it was also a a good example of okay there's literally nothing that isn't electronic in that song. Right. I mean I did it um I recorded it all in our sampler including the vocals you know I had enough memory in there which was hard back then to get all the vocals in there and um you know when it came to playing live we're like okay you know how are we gonna play this live how we can we make it more interesting and I I found that one of the things I started doing in these songs is there's sort of this middle section that's a little more housey technoy dancy. And um I would have that in almost every song because it gave us an opportunity to do something crazy. So like there's no vocals in the middle part and that was the time when you know at one point I I actually I brought it. I'm gonna I'm gonna open this up right now.

SPEAKER_03 41:15

Yeah um so he's opening up to this would have been used at Soma back in the day.

SPEAKER_01 41:23

And um so this is my skid lid and uh we use this during until dawn and it's I have a trigger a drum trigger in it. Yeah and so um I'd hook it up into the the first the octopad and then later the drum cat and you hit it and it triggers a sample right you know like a whatever but you know so I jumped down into the audience with a long cable it's not wireless. Right right and like I'd you know I'd hit my head and it would make a sound and then you sort of go okay yeah you can hit me too and it it became this you know audience participation thing where the middle of almost every song had an opportunity for us to go okay you know it's not just about dancing it's not just about going around clockwise or counterclockwise in a circle you know right we're gonna destroy this thing or you're gonna beat me on the head or uh uh orange spray paint became our thing fluorescent orange uh and it sort of came out of like well what color can you get flyers made you had orange and yellow and whatever so orange became our color and I'd go to Home Depot and buy uh you know as much fluorescent orange spray paint as they had and we let people spray paint us and stuff like this but it was really you know there's that center section of the song where okay you don't have to listen to the lyrics anymore okay it's you know the song is like okay the system screwed up we see sleep like stones with the promise of a perfect day you know it's like sort of vague but it's you know these are Mark's words like we're sort of helpless or we're ambivalent or we're jaded or whatever. All the songs were were this sort of thing. But then there's this center section which is either you know techno or or samples that you know uh these are all Robocop samples you know I'm I'm simply a machine I'm simply a machine I'm simply a machine and get people to you know just become you know part of the music. Don't just passively listen to the lyrics because there are a lot of them are pretty vague especially with industrial songs. But um yeah those those downstairs Soma shows especially with that uh intentional thought that okay this isn't just we're not just going to recreate a bunch of songs that I did on my sampler. Right. We're you know we somehow need to give it a a live experience and take into account specifically downstairs at Soma. I mean a lot of our shows Began there and then went other places. Right. And you know, either upstairs or to iguanas, we played a few times or something like that. And you go, okay, well, when you're on stage and you can't light things on fire and you can't interact with the audience, it's a very different experience. Right, right. And you've you fast forward 30 years and you go, Well, this is exactly like why all these bands have video now. You know, it's no longer just watching guitar-based drums on stage. People need something to entertain them. Right. And a a tiny little person on stage isn't good enough anymore. And so you go back to, you know, wow, you know, 100, 200 people in a tiny basement, that's that's the ideal place.

SPEAKER_03 44:48

And that all takes me back to that that's you're striking the memories of how it was. It was you were part of the show. I mean, there's no way to not be. I mean, the band's not put up on that pedestal to where you're looking at jumbotrons to see what the guy's doing on the guitar riff. You were part of the show, especially with you guys, because you would come off of the stage. Yeah. I probably actually inadvertently stole some ideas from you guys for my performances.

SPEAKER_01 45:18

Yeah, the the whole audience interaction thing was was big when I finally got my wireless headset. You know, uh people don't remember this. Back in the late 80s, you know, I had the same headset that Madonna was using, the shore one. It was wired. And you go, okay, well, you know, that means a lot of things. I'm constrained to this area. Right. And uh, you know, our drummer didn't want to wear headphones, so you know, he was pretty free. But um, you know, that ability to like either unplug and jump down in the audience and do something, um, you know, uh anything. And it was just, you know, one time I needed to shave, and and you know, I shaved my like half my head, you know, with with not a razor, but you know, uh, you know, wet shave with like shaving cream, and it was just uh I don't know what it symbolized, but people really liked it. Um another thing I did with this helmet was uh this is back when you still had film cameras, but the disposable kind. And so I glued cameras to my helmet and I ran around the audience, and somewhere in storage I still have that film. Uh, and it was I had it developed. I just ran around, I took pictures of people with you know this camera that was uh you know duct taped to my helmet. That was pretty cool. But yeah, interacting with a group, meeting the group, and then also making that connection with okay, you know, you want to get our music, what do you do? Because people didn't buy merch at a dance club. Right. At least not back then. You know, we would do a show, but then all the consignment cassettes and t-shirts at off the record to lose or gamma gamma or whatever would then sell out the next week. So we knew it wasn't that we were selling like traditionally a band on tour would sell, but we knew that doing shows resulted in selling merch. Right. And making that connection with people to say, you know, well, after the show, you know, hey, yeah, you can, you know, they're like, Oh, I didn't bring any money today, you know.

SPEAKER_05 47:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:37

Uh well, yeah, go to go to off the record and you know, you can pick up stuff. And you know, some of the some of the people would, you know, they'd have friends and they would buy stuff and you know, mail it to their friends. That was that was kind of the thing. Yeah, the beginning of the yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:52

Making mixtapes and then extending them.

SPEAKER_06 47:54

And of course that was a time before websites, so you didn't have your own band websites, so people, yeah. Yeah. Just go to the records. That's cool that the local record stores did that where they could.

SPEAKER_01 48:04

Yes, that was very cool. And they had a off the record, the one up in Hillcrest, they were nice because you walked in, the first thing you saw when you walked in the front door was the local music consignment area. And you know, that was cool not only with you know selling your own stuff, but I I'd go in and I'd be like, Oh yeah, I recognize this name from Soma or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 48:27

Because their flyers were plastered all over the right, right.

SPEAKER_01 48:30

I mean, there were there were the bands that the you know the 91x guys would promote and that wasn't my thing. I wasn't, you know, whatever, Rocket from Crypt was, you know, amazing and whatever, but it the music never really spoke to me. Right. And the shows were pretty, you know, traditional. Um so it just wasn't for me. Right. Uh so I wasn't getting good advice from uh the media, but being able to go into off the record and just go, okay, you know, what other bands are here? Yeah. Uh that was that was very cool. And you know, what I would start to do with the bands that were out of town, like um Biohazard, Contagion, uh, Babyland, these guys, is I'd send them something, send them a cassette or whatever, and say, hey, send me something back.

SPEAKER_05 49:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:27

And they would. And it was, you know, it was a sort of a cool vibe of you're a community of bands because you know, maybe you played together once and uh you want to do a show, okay. You know, I pick up the phone and I would call Dan, you know, a babyland or whatever, and say, Hey, you want to come down and play Sama? Oh yeah, sure. So that was, you know, that was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_03 49:49

And the scene back then was that scene was different than all the other ones that were kind of going around because of the camaraderie of the bands. If and because, you know, San Diego being so diverse, and back then too, remembering there wasn't as many bands. By the time it got to ninety-five well, I'd say the heyday was probably around ninety-four, ninety-five, when there was so many bands that by that point I had a bunch of 'em. But the scene had grown so much. So we're talking the early days. This it's like Jerry was saying, there's there's no internet, there's I mean, you have to put out flyers, you have to hustle, you have to make the connections with other bands, and that's how you can grow the scene. And the industrial scene was still Well, it was us. It was yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:38

Uh as far as San Diego went, and this it was cool for us to be in there because there was sweat engine and then there were the LA bands, right? Yeah. Pain Emission, you know, it they were trying to go off to the goth thing. And so it sort of started this. Well, are you more like ministry or are you more like uh skinny puppy? Right. And I'm like, no, we're more like ministry, but no guitars. Yeah you know, I I was not into the guitar thing. And what was great for us was people like Harlan, you know, Fineline, and some of the other ones. You have a big band coming to town, they're like, okay, you know, you're the only band in San Diego, so either we bring someone from LA or it's you guys. Yeah. And it was a very cool position to be in because we got to play with all of our heroes. Yeah. You know, so it was you know, Cam FDM and Meatbeat and consolidated um uh Nine-in-Sh Nails, of course. Um My Thrill Kill Cold. Did you guys no? We didn't play with them. Uh that was later, anyways. That would be a bit later 90s. You know, for a while there was this Club 860 and PB that uh Tim Hall was booking, I guess, for a while. And uh, you know, he'd call us and he'd say so-and-so's playing. And it was great because it was, you know, San Diego, it was always on a Friday or Saturday. It wasn't like they'd even try to book a band in any other day of the week because people wouldn't show up. So for us, you know, either being in school or having day jobs or whatever, it was easy for us to say, Oh yeah. And so uh, you know, initially when Mark was doing all the programming, you know, he'd he'd be like, Okay, we're playing, you know, Soma this week. Okay, great. Oh, we're playing this time this week, okay, that's great. And then I he's like, So I got some good news, but you better sit down. And I'm like, Well, why what's that? He knew, you know, we're DJs, so we know each other's musical taste. Yeah. And I'm a huge fan of Tackhead and the early, you know, Mark Stewart sort of the dub electronic scene from the 80s. And you know, Mark gives me uh he plays this record, he's like, Okay, you need to guess who this is. And he plays down in it, and I'm like, Oh, it's tack head. No, it's this new guy, yeah, yeah. And I'm like, no way. So I you know look at the back, and sure enough, all the all the people on there are you know, uh Tachead producer talks. And I'm like, you know, it clued me in on the kind of music that I like and the music I like to play is you know based off of these guys. Keith LeBlanc was a drummer for them. And so when Mark got the call for, you know, oh Harlan wants us to play um, you know, iguanas, I'm like, oh, I'm totally there, that's great. But we'd be opening up for Nine Age Nails, so you know, that's the downside. I'm going I mean I was so inspired by this because I was by this time I'm a huge, you know, huge Nine Age Nails fan. And it was, you know, it was an for us it was an okay show. It was it was awkward being on such a large stage without the ability to do any of our fun stuff that we usually do. Yeah. Uh but the show was was fantastic and uh you know, good experience all around.

SPEAKER_06 54:02

Um did you see them when they played the uh Balk and All?

SPEAKER_01 54:08

No, no, this was the first time I I I've only seen them once since because it you know they kind of went in a direction that I wasn't so into. But that was like just an amazing show. And you know, being able to hang out with m with Mike who is their drummer who's has since passed, unfortunately. Um you know, he was doing all the sound check and I got to hang out with him and we're you know, this is you know, n what ninety-two or something. No, it must have been ninety-one.

SPEAKER_06 54:39

So at the same time they did Lollapluza.

SPEAKER_01 54:42

Yeah, so this was sort of the beginning of the move into the sort of goth fetish aesthetic. It was still, you know, the the first tour. And it was such a cool show because you know, we're saying how do you perform this kind of music? Right. You know, where either you have a sequence or you have samplers or you have, you know, some bands had backing tracks, certainly like Frontline Assembly was ninety-nine point nine percent backing tracks, yeah. Which which is fine. I mean, if if you got lots of blinking lights on stage, you know, that's what you go to see. And so there was this community, especially when you got to hang out with these people. Well, how are you doing what you do? Right. And I'm like, well, I put all of my money literally across six different credit cards into this sampler. And it can do everything. All of our sounds are coming from the sample. I don't have any mixers, I don't have anything. All the MIDI goes into this sampler, and the sound, uh except for the vocals, uh, all the music is generated from this. And, you know, he was explaining to me how they did it and how they did, you know, how do you get those lush vocals like until dawn. And until dawn, that's all me. You know, until dawn, but it sounds like me four times, right? So, you know, the way I do it is I've got an until dawn sample in the sampler, I hit the drum pad and it plays until dawn. So, um, but I also say it, right? So I'm layering my voice on top of a sample, and that's how we did it. You go and see bands like um D Warsaw, who I also loved, yeah. Um, and I got to talk. I we didn't play with them, but I got to talk with their drummer, and he had a similar setup to mine, and I'm like, uh, you know, how are you doing it? He's like, Oh, I'm triggering four-bar loops, you know, this pad does this, this pad does this, you know. So it was a it was a really great time to be uh communicating with these other artists in how do you do this live? Because now you go, oh, I throw it all in Ableton and hit play, right? Yeah. Or, you know, half the songs are just a backing track in Ableton, and then Ableton's generating all the other songs when I hit a drum pad. Okay, well that's there's nothing, there's no individuality in the performance. But being able to talk with these other guys, especially the tech guys, you know, we played with one band at Club 860 that they were triggering or they were syncing everything off of SIMTI. This was just crazy. It was a bunch of guys that worked at Guitar Center, they were complete tech heads. Yeah. And it was just they were explaining to me what they were doing. Oh, yeah, we got our backing tracks on video, and we sync via SIMTY, and we have three different decks, and we, you know, we're running SIMTI between. And I'm like, you guys are crazy. Yeah. Not no video, just well, how are you syncing your MIDI? And they're like, Well, that's the problem. We never played live before, and we need a hundred-foot MIDI cable, and we don't know what to do because we can't do our show without it. I said, I got a hundred-foot MIDI cable in my van. It's like, where did you get it? I said, I made it. I said, Well, you you can make MIDI cables. I'm like, Well, yeah, you soldered, you know, soldered two MIDI plugs on the end of a hundred-foot cable. It works. And uh, but that those were really fun experiences. And being at Soma specifically, I come back to that, which is being booked with bands that aren't tech bands, I think was so key for us learning. You know, I learned so much about microphones and guitars and amps and things like that by you know being around these bands that are using different kinds of instruments. And, you know, we're all samplers and you know, oil drums and things like that. So real traditional industrial, electro industrial. But then you'd you know, you'd hook up with a band like Tit Wrench that's really a punk band. Yeah. I mean, they're a punk band with samplers, not a sampler band with punks. Right. And um, you know, they always had a weird way of you know doing their electronics. Hate department was always interesting, you know, in the early days, they're like, Yeah, I just don't let my drummer have a kick drum. I mean, what do you mean? You you don't let your drummer? Yeah. You know, we never had that band dynamic where I was like, I'm not gonna let you have, you know, whatever I'm gonna suggest you have this, but I, you know, I didn't like that idea of a band leader dictating how someone performs their instruments.

SPEAKER_03 59:33

Especially when you're doing something so experimental as it is, you kind of have to let people do what they're gonna do and find out what works. Absolutely. Otherwise, there's resentment. I mean, that's I got lucky with all my bands because I'm freaking nut on stage. Absolute, like, especially when I drink a lot. But I was allowed to do it. I mean, cockroach. That was about that was just I mean, iggy pop on on Iggy pop. But with me instead, so in the early days, like, you know, um, even to this day, Neubottons like hugely a lot of punks really like it. So with you guys doing what you were doing, and again, because you were experimenting, you were growing and you're figuring out how to do it, that was about as punk rock as you can get. So you bring in people like me because you're just doing something different. And the fact that you have other musicians that are also creating that whole sound in the way to do it, trying to keep up with the limited. Would you say limited is a nice way of with the things that you can do, because now everything you just plug it into it. You can plug it into an iPhone and you can write a whole album. Yeah. And you could just stand there and and push your i button, you know, iPhone and shake your butt or whatever, but and it's not I don't like to go down that road of things are so easy now.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:56

They're just you don't have to make choices because there are companies that have made choices for you.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:02

And I like to think of it that way because this goes back to, you know, me and Mark and then eventually me and Timo, you know, the anti-corporate, anti-system. The system is not necessarily leading you in the correct direction. And so, you know, my more recent artistic stuff has been, okay, you know, maybe I can do it with a computer, I can do it with a phone or whatever. But sometimes, you know, let's go get some hardware and you know, see what happens, you know, see if there's a happied accident. Um so composing music might be um, you know, leveraging those things that we know, you know. You go back to people want to hear a couple verses in a course or whatever, right quite often, or else you know, maybe they'll lose interest. Yeah. But the hook. Yeah. See if um see if there's something that we can get beyond what some corporation has told us to do. Right. And then there's the flip of this, and I love doing this because I think it's hilarious. You know, I have friends that will bash on companies like Behringer or Roland or whatever, and so I become fascinated with okay, I'm just gonna use all Roland equipment just to spite them and see what you know, see what the corporation is telling me to to do, because you can't deny that so much of the big like electronic scene, people want to hear that kick drum. Right. And how can you say that, oh, I'm gonna do something different and yet attract the same audience? You you simply can't. So you have to lure them in and then lead them. That's why in it until dawn, I I love this, you know, the center section that I wrote, you know, all those I'm not using any um, you know, traditional drum machines or things like that. They're all uh samples that came with a My Roland sampler, but they're samples of Roland equipment, so that's why you have that center section that's kind of techno-y, acid techno, that came out of, you know, that hardware. And uh, you know, people recognize the sound, so it's not just about recognizing the composition with you know experimental or electronic music. It's like you play something and people go, okay, I ex I accept that that's that kind of electronic sound. It's a TB303 or it's a you know a TR you know 9 or whatever it is. And but the same goes for the industrial sound. And this is like with the uh Neubun stuff, you know, I love the you've probably seen the the films, you know, the the playing the shopping cart and things like this. And I love that when you can recognize what that sound is, you know, oh that sounds like someone, you know, using an angle grinder on an air conditioning duct. Well, I know that sound because you know, this is what Babyland was doing with their oil drums and their angle grinder, and I'm like, oh, I know that sound. Okay. And that's such a big part of industrial music that is not the electronic dance music. You know, we go back to you know, residence and Neubotten and these guys, and even back to music concrete and stuff like that, where you go, okay, we're gonna use fountain sounds. Right. And, you know, we'd get into the routine that before our show I'd drive around and borrow, I would borrow, I'd always return it, stuff from construction sites, you know, air conditioning ducts and things like that, and we'd use it in a show and I'd take it back when we were 10. Um, my drum rack that I used for years and years was just a piece of metal I found in a construction site that Mark welded a crossbeam on so I could put my drum pads on there. And uh, but you'd hit it and it would be like, okay, that's that's the sound of a wooden drumstick on a you know a piece of steel or a piece of aluminum, whatever the case is. And then you go, Oh, I'm gonna put a microphone on that. Yeah. And that's where we get that sound.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:22

And for a live show, you can do that, which adds to aesthetics, but you can also record it, and then you have it in a loop so you can use it for recording purposes so you don't have to bust out. But for me, what I always preferred was just the live aesthetics. Look at that. And so this drum is so it's a rolling. When when did you get that?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:45

So this is a rolling PD twenty. I bought this used at the guitar center that used to be out on El Cajon Boulevard. Okay. So I bought it used back then. And it's basically, these are the most awesome drum pads because it's basically A piece of uh fiber wood with some like almost like a mouse pad type material and then a piece of plastic on the top. I take the plastic off because it eventually split, but you can hit this so hard because it's an inch and a half thick piece of fiberboard. And so I got a bunch of these. I eventually bought more of them, ran them into the octopad or later the drum cat. And then I put these brackets on that, you know, Mark would make this kind of pipe for me, and these brackets would go into a piece of uh aluminum crossbeam, and uh we use stuff like this for all the shows. Yeah. And the aesthetic of that.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:42

Basically, you guys made up your own rigs and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:46

Yeah, it for me, I never liked the idea of a sit-down drum kit. So uh, and this is before like Roland and the other companies, you know, at least as were selling their kits. So the octopad was the thing of the time, eight pads, but you could plug in external pads. So I seen um Book of Love, remember those guys from the 80s? So this is like you know, new wave techno, girly techno pop. I really like Book of Love. I saw them out at the Metro. Um, and you know, there's a girl playing drums, and and I'm like, you know, this is in the 80s, like probably 86, I want to say. Yeah, yeah. And I'm like, okay, so I'd seen Art of Noise live, and they were using fairlight, all fairlights keyboards, and their show was a bunch of people playing keyboards, and I'm like, okay, I like their music, but I don't like what I'm seeing on stage. Right. This is not interesting to me. Right. I want to see, you know, people hitting stuff. And so I really was inspired by Book of Love, and I managed to find where I could buy an octopad. I remember I bought it online. Mail order was a thing. I got some catalog from some company and ordered that, and we put together my first rig was the the octopad um just by itself. The first show we played up at UCSD uh at the pub up there. The Triton Pub. Uh it was called, yeah, it was called the Triton Pub back then. And we got that space as part of being associated with the uh with the radio station. Matt Schnur, who was the program manager up there, he booked that space for us. And then as we started a great space. Yeah, as we started doing shows at uh at Soma, um, you know, we got more and more industrial, old school industrial. So it was, you know, there's a picture of me and Mark um down there on probably our second show down in the basement, and it's just you know, combat boots, black shorts, um, white shirts, very industrial. Yeah. And I had samplers back then, and you know, we triggered the samplers with the keyboard, but it was all about this, you know, the live performance and the live performance. There's always something to watch. And Mark was great to watch on stage. I mean, he's this big tall guy, and he, you know, you can feel the anger and resentment coming out of him when he's when he's doing his live thing. And um, you know, it evolved from there when we heard about the 9 inch nail show. I I bought the drum cat, that was like the new thing, and I was like so inspired. Yeah. Um, and the drum cat allowed us to do some things like trigger sequences and then also layer uh, you know, layering sounds. So it was like our kick drums weren't just one kick drum, it was like an 808 and two things you never heard before, and the harder I hit it, the more of something that would happen. So it was it was an intelligent drum pad system, and so we'd put the you know, the drum cat up with a bunch of pads on the outside. I and I got some other people to play with us. Um the 9 Inch Nail show, I had a bass player that I got, I was a grad student from UCSD, really good uh percussionist from UCSD. I gave him my octopad and we ran all the MIDI into the sampler, so you know, we're doing our thing. Uh sometime later, you know, Mark, you know, ran his course. Uh we did the show at Soma and he he, you know, because we're carrying the big speakers and he just racked his knuckles on the uh going down up back up the stairs after the show really badly. He's like, Yeah, I'm done. He's like, he's like, I played with everyone I want to play with. Yeah. And you know, I I'm not interested in doing this for you know for free. You know, it's not, it's not. And I'm like, okay. And Timo was a big fan. He was hanging out outside and he heard overheard Mark say what he he said, and Timmo's like, I'll do it. I know all the lyrics. And I'm like, and Mark goes, Okay, you're hired. And I'm like, wait, wait, wait, what? And um, so we we just went into this this new phase with you know Timmo being this amazing character on stage. I mean, just you know, not just against the system, but not acknowledging that a system exists. I mean, every show we played, the promoter would come up to me and say, you know, next time you can't do this or that. I'm like, what do you mean, me? This was all Timo. He was always misbehaving and climbing on, you know, priceless artwork or whatever happened to be the case. And uh his buddy, CJ, was a traditional rude boy. So he was deep in the that scene and percussionist. And we got him. We're like, yeah, you come in and play. He's like, Well, what are you gonna play? Oh, I'm gonna play oil drums. I'm like, how? He's like, I don't know. I got axe handles, and I'm like, this sounds super industrial. So the first show he played with us was downstairs at Soma. And I said, Okay, I'm just gonna give you some advice, you know, play twos and fours, you know, boom, kick stop every once in a while. That way people recognize when you come back in, and then during the middle section, go wild. Yeah, like jump down into the the pit with me, and we're gonna do some wild stuff. And after the show, I mean I was just amazing show, amazing sound. I mean, you're hitting an oil drum with axe handles downstairs at Soma, even without a PA, is like Yeah, the reverberation down there would have been. Looking at him, you know, doing his thing was so amazing. And after the show, you know, his both of his hands were just completely bloodied, and one of his fingers looked off. He's like, Yeah, I broke my finger. I'm like, what did you do? You hit his finger on the you know, so we left and it was like he was, you know, he got it fixed and it was all fine later. But I'm like, this is what a show should be, you know, just crazy people banging on stuff, sounds they'd never heard before, you know, uh bodily damage that isn't necessarily permanent. One of the best shows ever until we played play school at the sports arena a a little while later.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:32

And um, they just let us do whatever we wanted, and so we stacked a bunch of stages on top of each other so you could be up three stories high and CJ was there, and it was just that that was the evolution beyond downstairs at Soma, where we we were like, we want to recreate all the good stuff from Soma, but now we're in this big space. Yeah, how do we do this? Oh, okay, we're gonna we're gonna set up stages and we're gonna create this little performance area just like it's Soma. Nice, and it was like there was so much inspiration taken from downstairs at Soma, going, okay, we're gonna we're gonna create a space the same size. Uh, you know, we got other people to uh perform with us. Somehow these two girls hooked up with us and they wanted to dance, and that was both good and bad, but it gave us that whole, you know, you've got people on stage that are eye candy, uh, and that's their job.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:36

And this is something that maybe a couple years before, I'm like, no, I d I don't want any any faking of anything on stage. I don't want any dancers or things like that.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:47

Um, but it was a but that was kind of a progressive thing, wasn't it? Because at that point that started to become more grave. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:57

Yeah. So I was gonna ask you, how long would that set be at play school? How long would you guys play?

SPEAKER_01 1:15:03

We that was an interesting thing because there was the main floor with the DJ, and then all these side areas in the sports arena, and they set up a side area that was um for the like goth industrial area. And they basically said, Okay, we got we got you guys, we got um Ray from Paint Emission, formerly formed this band called Penis, which was basically him, his DJ friend, and a bunch of dancers. Yeah, and they did this sort of really cool, you know, not on stage show. They used um 16 millimeter projectors as uh as like spotlights, like they didn't put film in it, they just used the bulb. And so these people would walk around with you know, and the girls would dance and it was like this more techno type of thing. Yeah. And they left it up to us. They're like, okay, we got this going on, you know, you guys you guys work it out amongst yourselves, which is sort of what Soma downstairs was. You got three bands, you guys work out, you know. Usually the second band was the headliner, because people wouldn't hang out late enough or often enough for the the last band. But we'd work it out amongst ourselves, you know. Yeah, it wasn't nearly as but we'd play, yeah, we'd play like forty to forty-five minute sets traditionally, and then you know, we'd go an hour if we if we had the opportunity. There was uh a club and I'm forgetting who ran this one. It was down in PB up on the up on the hill by the Masi Nissan. Uh there was a club there for a while, and we played a New Year's Eve show there once, and that's where they're like, you know, we got there, oh yeah, well, you're the only band tonight, so you know, can you play, you know, two hours or whatever? And so we ended up, you know, playing an hour, taking a break, and playing our set again, which was kind of cool on a New Year's Eve. But most of the time it was, you know, especially with opening up for the other bands, it was a pretty set, like 40 minutes. That's what they wanted. And um Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:23

We started to break that down later as getting more when I started booking more and more bands, we would do what, 30 minute sets or 25 minute sets, and it became more constructed and more refined, and 'cause we started to get more of a formula. But again, you know, just going back to the early days, that's why it was so brilliant because it was just so loose. It's like, well, you guys are downstairs, all right. Well bands figure it out, and that's I think another thing that made it such a magical time was as the scene was being created and the bands I mean it was full involvement. You know, you you could go up and in the foyer in the front of Soma is where so many things happened. Bands were made, decisions were made, and it was it was a crazy time, and I would just sit there on the stool talking to people as they come in, and I mean that's how I ended up booking POD and a lot of decisions were made there. Oh yeah, I like them. It was the early days that really and that's why I had to have you on, because just to remember those times, I have such fond memories. And that seriously, I think inadvertently I stole some of my stage style from from you guys. I know a lot of it was a heavy influence on me. And um it was just it was a magical time. And everything was so fresh and so new. Yeah. So which comes to with you're doing that and then when did sweat engines start to kind of fall apart or did it did it not, or how would you say what was the transition?

SPEAKER_01 1:19:01

You know, we we sort of hit the peak in um you know, the first year after Timo was in there, so around 93 was really pretty good. Yeah. Um, I was sort of looking for the next thing. So we we did this, you know, we wanted to do a CD or something, and then CD ROM was just coming out. So I was also looking at um, you know, I was doing a lot of production work by this time, and I'm like, oh, you know, this is actually turning from a band into a business. Right. And uh we came out with a multiple insertion CD-ROM, which was way ahead of its time. It was way too early, people didn't get it. I mean, it was it was a uh music by sweat engine, but with contributed artists. So loosely based on, you know, below San Onofre in ninety one ninety two was art, poetry, music, right. Compilation, cross-border, you know, San Diego Tijuana. So this one was gonna be okay, only sweat engine music, but art, all sorts of art, because at CD ROM we can do video and things like that. A little too heady for the certainly the industrial community, but it was a it was a fun project. And for me, that evolved into pretty quickly into a business. And so we did this, uh, had a company called Control Room that was streaming services for radio stations. So it by this time we were doing 92.591x and things like that, and that eventually evolved into database work for TV. So I did NBC and things like that and formed another company. And it was around that time that um yeah, the shows weren't as exciting as they used to be.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:56

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:56

And so it was a combination, and you know, before we knew it, it was like, yeah, we haven't done any shows in a while. And we did like got invited to play a house party, and uh and that was a little awkward. That was Timo couldn't make it. Oh and that was ugly, and I should have learned my lesson because we done a show a few months earlier at 14th and C. That was that warehouse downtown. And uh and our Julia, who was our doing vocals and samples for us back then, um really awesome, just great performer, great percussionist. She couldn't make it because she was going to be traveling, and I had someone else sing her song, and that was ugly. I learned a lot of life lessons by like you don't let other people sing their songs unless it's like, you know, you know, with Mark going to Timo, he was like, Yeah, do whatever you want, I'm done. But with you know, other people, oh, I can't make it. Well, we're not gonna cancel the show. What does that mean? We're not gonna do the song. Yeah, we're you don't do someone else's song, right? And it's it's uh something that's awkward in an experimental situation where you have different vocalists or you know, different pieces like that. It's it's more like a circus, yeah. You know, and you know, I run sound now for Fern Street Circus, which is a blast.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:24

And I'm very I'm very sensitive to watching, okay, if this person isn't there, can someone else just come in and do their bit with their music? Well, no, not without permission. So uh yeah, so around 95-ish, and I started playing with this group, One Volatile One, they were sweat engine fans, and it was more uh industrial percussion. So um one of the guys was heavily into taiko and uh also electronic music, so it was a little more industrial than sweat engine was less vocals. Okay, uh, basically bass and drums, and you know, some vocals. And then that was the time I got I met Luis, who is runs Aesthetic Meatfront, and he had come down. We did a show at what was called the Loft downtown at that space that eventually catch on fire or something. I don't know. But we did this amazing show down there, JJ put it on, and um I met Luis down there, and he was doing this meat thing that was just weird. You know, he brought out a cow's liver and passed it around. He told the goth people, okay, you all have to lick it, and they did. And I'm like, I mean, what is this about? I'm like, you need drums, and that was now uh yeah, almost 30 years ago. So I hooked up with him, he moved back to Berlin, we kept that going. Okay, and so um he still does shows. You know, I haven't seen him. Well, actually, I saw him a couple months ago, but we haven't done a show together in uh since right before the lockdown. Oh we did a big show in Berlin, and then I flew back after the show, and everyone's okay, we're locking everything down. Good thing you caught your flight. That was at the end of uh beginning of March. And uh we did do one sweat engine CD, which I brought for you.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:31

Yeah. I was gonna ask, did you guys ever tour?

SPEAKER_01 1:24:36

Uh just to like LA. We never did the traditional band tour, but here you can have one too. So this was the last the last one that we did. It's a single, it was in 2004, I want to say. So it's uh for those who can't see it, it's a gear-shaped CD. That was another attempt at doing something new and different. I'm like, I want to make something that's probably going to break people's CD players. Right, anyway. Well, if you put this in a slot loading car CD player, it'll get stuck. But uh, you know, it's shaped kind of like a throwing star.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:11

That's so cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:12

And I did it with Timo's doing vocals on there. I also got uh Vinny from Spit to do some guitars on there, so it was kind of a more of a compilation of you know, hey, we're all gonna do a song, and it's called uh we put the go in gothic, and it's uh almost Timmo style, you know, making fun of the goths type of thing. Um and it includes some field recording. I went to a club and talked to Vaughn, who you probably know, and and there was a girl there, she was going off about what it means to be a goth and things like that. So it's got some cool samples and it's it's in surround sound too. So if you put it in a DTS capable video player, it'll play in surround sound. So that was our last uh last recording as sweat engine. Okay, and um then you know I still keep in touch with with Timo, he's out in Arizona. Okay, and uh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:15

So you're doing with production, you were talking about the hardcore kids.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:19

Oh yeah. Yeah, that was a that's an interesting scene, you know, and I I met them from uh Bob um from Titrun, she started sending me over projects to master. And this was another, you know, I by this time in the 90s I was doing computer-based mastering, and there weren't that many people who had dat machines that could do this kind of thing. So a lot of it was, you know, the bands would go out to Santee or whatever they record, they come to me with either their real-to-reel two-track or their dats, mostly dats later, and seven-inch singles. So it was, you know, load it in, maybe fix the volume, cut it to the right length. And then what was hilarious, all the bands were like, Do you have like a toilet flushing sample? I mean, I'm like, Yeah, but I used it on these other guys last week. Oh, that's fine. We just want the song to end with a toilet flushing sample. I'm like, okay, yeah, I got that. Yeah. And we put that at the end, and I'd write it back out to debt and they'd send it off. I'd FedEx it off for duplication. And you know, they'd they'd pay me okay. Generally the bands would come by with a blank check from their parents uh with in the memo would say not to exceed, you know, whatever. Yeah. Uh, because you know, uh I was charging, you know, whatever, twenty five bucks an hour or something like that. And when you're dealing with data real to real, you're real time, you know. So if I'm loading in an hour, well, there's twenty five bucks. If I'm writing out an hour, that's twenty five bucks, and we spend, you know, a few hours fixing volume and things like that. And eventually. Eventually, you know, Bob stopped doing as much of that, and then gravity came and they started calling it hardcore.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:07

You know, before then it was, you know, oh, it's punk, right? But it was now specifically hardcore, which many years later you look back on it and you go, Oh, well, San Diego was the hardcore scene. And I, you know, I go through discogs, right? And I look at all this stuff and I'm like, master did, master did, master did, master did. But it was me in my living room and my computer and you know, some decent monitors, uh, and I had our full PA in there so we could listen to it loudly. Um met a lot of these guys, and they would um they'd stay together for you know, maybe two or three singles, and then oh yeah, we, you know, we broke up, we got a new guitar player, we broke up, we got a new bass player, we broke up, we got this or that, and um I'm like, okay, that's sort of how the scene's working.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:54

And that's one of the ways that there were so many bands as well, because everyone would, you know, someone would break off, they would start another band, and then before you know it, there's people they've been around so much and they've got so many different bands that they've started basically not only they create their own um their own catalog, but they become their own individuals that certain people want to use in a band. And there was a lot of it was out of the South Bay and some incredible bands came out of there, and they're still relevant to this day. But um that scene was you know, to think that coming from fans of sweat engine into such a powerful scene that that is also incredible, and you got to work on so many of them. And I just find it see from my standpoint I'm sitting back just booking these bands, going, okay, so you're not around anymore, but oh, so so and so's in a new band and they're called that okay, well, I have to give 'em a call and then try to get 'em in. But um as you know, the the scene's growing and everything and these bands are starting to get bigger and bigger and bigger, it's just it's amazing how much talent came through and to know that you know, again, me sitting on the sidelines, I didn't realize how these you know, these people became so big without the internet. And I like to learn all the the the the little nuances of it. Like I had no idea that you were working with them, that you were doing production.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:33

Yeah, and I didn't I didn't really think of it at the at so much at the time because I'm like I'm performing a service. Right, I'm getting paid for it, fine. Right. And uh then later it's like, oh, people get mastering credit? That's a thing.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:50

Right. So if you go on a discogs and you look up my name, there's a bunch of stuff that's mastered by me, comma uncredited, meaning, you know, on the album artwork, it doesn't actually credit me. Right. Right. I I put those all in. And uh, but you know, you mentioned the uh you have these people that are bouncing from band to band, or they're uh almost like a celebrity that you know people want because they want their their sound or things like that. It's almost like a studio musician that you, you know, you hire the the wrecking factory or whatever it is that you know you hire this wrecking crew. Uh you know, those are the guys you want playing on your tracks because you like their sound. And um for me as a mastering engineer, I learned mastering by sitting with these guys and going, okay, we recorded this and we mixed it, but the problem is so-and-so has the masters, all we have is the two-track mix down and the guitars are way too loud. What can you do? Right. And so they were telling me what they wanted it to sound like. Oh, the kick drum is, you know, it's got too much bass in it, you know, we want that. But I'm mi I'm working with a two-track mix. I'm not I'm not mixing them. Right. But I would sit with them for hours and listen to them go, okay, well, let me do this. I'm gonna EQ this, I'm gonna put this compressor on, and it's gonna tame those guitars so that you can hear the vocals better. You know, yeah. Are you cool with that? Yeah. And they're like, Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what we want. And so I learned so much from them, you know. I'm not taking classes and mastering, and they're the band is telling me the sound that they want, and I'm playing it back to them, and they're telling me, okay, I want something different or or whatever. And it was such a great way of learning because uh you're producing art. Right. It's a art that's fairly well established. I mean punk music, okay. And I got into the routine of saying, Okay, who do you want to sound like? But not you know, people are very sensitive about okay, my my songs are different than so-and-so's songs. Right. But I really like, you know, the way Mick Jagger's vocals sound, you know, they're not like compressed so much, they're not, you know, there's not so much high end on it, you know. Right. I said, okay, so I'm gonna give you Mick Jagger vocals and you know, and then I'd name some other people without saying, you know, oh, we're we're stealing their genre or their composition. Because really with mastering, you're just you know, you're putting icing on the cake and you're you know, you're you're fine-tuning it and mostly trimming heads and tails and things like that. And that led into, you know, from the the tit wrench time, um, you know, Bob's label and all of that. Uh then Chase started doing Reconstruction. I don't know if you were hooked into him, so that was part of cargo.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:58

And and so he was sending me all of his compilations, and it was all you know, take a track off of this dad, another track off of this dat, make them all sound good together. Right. So these were all these bands that I knew already, like the Babylands and the Hate Departments, but also the ones that hadn't come through San Diego, which was pretty cool, especially the European ones. Uh and that was a really cool way to meet all these guys virtually. You know, again, it's beginnings of the internet, maybe, but we weren't there was no social media. And so uh we had email by then, so a lot of it was um, you know, okay, hey, uh here's what I did to your track in email, and I'm gonna mail you a dat, take a take a listen to it and tell me what you think, and then they'd write back to me on email and say, Oh yeah, it sounds great, or you know, oh it's you know, you you took out all my bass, you know, or whatever. Yeah. It was a really great way of uh you know, interacting with the bands, but also, you know, learning something about, you know, how do you make it sound the way they want it to sound.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:10

Right. But it's a trial by fire, but you have to really get in and see because you know, all of us artists are pretty sensitive.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:18

So if and and I just have to share this story because it's like, well, what happened to your relationship with reconstriction? Well, I get all these dats, and back in the day dats were either 44.1 or 48, and you'd write it on the outside of the data and the job was really put the dat in the dat machine, set your sample rate on the computer, load the sound in, if it's a different sample rate, convert it to 44.1, playlist it, fade in, fade out, write it back out. Okay. Right. I do this a lot. One band sent me a dat with a wrong sample rate on the outside. I didn't know the song, so when I loaded it in and after you know, writing it back out, it came whatever that is, some number a percent too fast. Right. Right. And pitched up. Yeah. Nobody checked it. Five thousand copies made of by this time CDs, right. Distributed before the band even hears it. The band has a complete meltdown. Cargo's gotta throw someone under the bus. So they stopped payment on the check written to me. I'm in an awkward position. I'm like, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. Let me go double check the debt. I'm like, they wrote the wrong sample rate on the outside of the debt. Right. I said, Well, you should have checked it. I'm like, I don't know the songs. Right. And I'm like, Well, yeah, you guys should have checked it too. So it was, I never worked for Reconstruction again. Chase being the cool guy that he was. Well, he wasn't cool, but he was the nice guy that he was, he ended up paying me out of his own pocket. Oh, wow. And 'cause I had, you know, I had rent and stuff. And um that was sort of the end of the working with Reconstruction, and by that time they had sort of evolved into a a different style of music. But it was a that was also a very cool time. And that all came out of this relationship with, you know, college radio. I met Chase because he was the the manager over at San Diego State's college radio station. And you know, he come out to the shows and he do these compilations and that was part of that whole scene too, which was um you you call a mixtape, but we were like, okay. Um I actually brought one of those. I don't know if you if you got this one. We did this tape with hate department that's oh wow. We just call it and. So it's sweat engine and hate department. And um that's awesome. Yeah, you know, a bunch of tracks from Sweat Engine, bunch of tracks from Hate Department. It's sort of my version of the evolution beyond a compilation. Like a compilation hides the fact that someone is um has the majority of the tracks. But if it's two bands, you know, then each band can sort of promote it, you know, as their own their own thing. It it separates it from what a compilation is. And um that's the only one I did then sometime after a lot of us, you know, Keith from Biohazard and Contagion opened up studios in LA, uh, Vinny from Spit, he was doing full production in LA. I was doing this mastering stuff and eventually internet stuff, and you know, Todd DJ Dax was doing his computer stuff, and we're all producers now. Yeah. And I'm like, let's do a project where you know it's sort of like we're all playing on all the tracks, or we're all playing on a bunch of the tracks, and so that's where track horror came from. And we started that with um that would have been ninety-nine, I guess. Okay. We did the first track horror and uh ended up doing a second one, did a big show at Club Xanth, which was fun. Cool. And uh that was the last, I think, of the projects that captured that vibe of the downstairs at Soma, which is you got 200 people that show up to a show, you got a bunch of bands, um, but the bands are um you know, they're playing their own music, but they're all also playing these these collaborative songs that we created together, which was so cool. Yeah, that was that was a cool video.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:01

It was it's the essence of a scene, for lack of better terms. Because everyone was you know, everyone played their part and the camaraderie of the bands, but you know, again, anyone that does anything with art, they know if you don't have an audience and then if if you have an audience, I mean you can have a bunch of heads out there, but if they're all staring at you like you know, you're boring them, then you lose that integrity to do what you do. So the early days of the dungeon was just such a magical time because of the fact that you knew and you weren't going there because you're going there with your girlfriend can dance and you're gonna go watch a band. No, you went because you were a part of what was going on. And that's the magic that we wanted to get on the on the podcast to really let people know because a lot of people have kind of forgotten about it at this point. It's so I mean, we were knocking out shows like crazy during the holiday time. I would be booking upwards of fourteen shows, and then we had to do the New Year's. So through the the Christmas vacation for the kids, I would have, you know, five, six bands every just about every night, all the way through that vacation. So it became, you know, a production line. And it wasn't so much about developing the new bands as it was. It's and you know, we can coin the old back in the day. And that's what Soma was down in the dungeon. It's that is now officially back in the day. And you guys were hugely influential. So on that note, um, we're gonna wrap up for now. I could sit here and I could pick your brain from so many more things. There's a lot of topics I do want to get into.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:44

Um, but I I really enjoyed this, and it's it was fun for me to dig out you know, the back in the day. And um, you know, the show we did in '92 with the Below Santa No Free CD release party was monumental down in the dungeon. It was, you know, first we create this project cross-border, which was insanely complicated with my partner Brenda. She did an amazing work coordinating with the the Tijuana folks. But it it brought the scenes together. Yeah. The San Diego scene and the Tijuana scene. And then we put on this show down in the basement, not just the music, but you know, the artists came out, and now you have artists appreciating music, which doesn't always work. You have musicians appreciating art, which is even more rare, and then you have poets, which normally would never come to Soma, let alone downtown, who are hanging out in a basement. It was like such a phenomenal project that I keep thinking, you know, how do we recapture that? And I keep coming back to you can't without the basement of Soma.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:56

Right. Yeah. Yeah, that's yeah. That's one of the things that Jerry and I have talked about too, is just recreating. I'm actually working with some kids that are trying to do the same thing, but without that building, it's just it's not it's not gonna be the same thing. But the more that we talk about it, the more it might inspire other people to find a space to be able to do it and create the same thing. If not, then we're just gonna keep telling the stories and keep playing the music. And every time I think of sweat engine, I'm just gonna get all giddy because I got to sit here with you, Trevor. I'm like, I'm I'm really stoked on this. We talked about it for a little while now, and I'm I'm glad that we were able to make it happen. I really truly appreciate you coming in. Any last words you want to say for anything you're gonna promote right now?

SPEAKER_01 1:43:47

Or I'm I'm just gonna promote the general idea of doing new cool music projects. You know, I've got my own personal stuff that I've been doing. Most of them are collaborations. Uh Hipster Modular is one of them, Medical Grade's another one. The most recent one I did was uh with Jesse Hunt, who was and him and his mom are like big Soma fans from those days. And so we did this project called The Ditch, which is uh what we're calling a music film. Okay. Um I brought you did I I might have mailed you a copy, but uh I brought you a thumb drive of that video, and it's it's it really does come out of that. Okay, I met you and your son 20 whatever years ago, and you know, now we can do cool stuff. Let's do some cool stuff. That's awesome. Yeah. Well thanks. Thank you.

SPEAKER_06 1:44:51

This podcast was recorded at Red Rum Skates. Mixed by me, Chair. Music provided by Breakacre. We appreciate all our listeners and our guests. Please stay tuned for the next one. Have a great one.