" FEAR & LOATHING IN BERKLEY" - Barrington Halls Spaghetti Night Dinners

        The Morlocks had been living in San Francisco for about 3 Months and things had gotten better. We we're playing shows and building a following somewhat. We had a friend that was attending "Berkley University" and was living in a kind of dorm, but it was more like a four story run down apartment building that resembled something out of "Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls". Barrington Hall as it was called was famous for their "Spaghetti Night Dinners", which they would have once a Month. They would make a spaghetti dinner for all the residents of the hall. After they would have a band play and consume copious amounts of "chemicals" . . .

 
         When we got there we where a little surprised , because we where under the impression that this was like a place where students lived. I guess looking back they did live there but it didn't look like they where doing much schooling. The place basically looked like a squat with black lights , glow in the dark graffiti on the walls and people wandering around looking more like hippies, punkers, artists, and rich "trust fund" kids that where spending Papas money trying to figure out what they where going to be . . . basically looking like "Manson Family" rejects. At the time we where a bit paranoid because the Week before we had been in Oakland, (which at that time was still basically a Black community) and some gang guy had run across the street and slapped Jeff in the head because of the bandana he was wearing. I guess it was the wrong color or something along those lines. He said something like, "Don't ever let me catch you wearing this here agian cuz", I think it was also cause Jeff was one of those "White Devils" So we where kind of tripping because "Barrington Hall" was kind of on the border of "Berkley " and "Oakland".

Welcome to Oakland

  
     Everything was going to be alright we realized when some guy and I guess his assistants came a greeted us with a 4ft. tank of nitrous oxide and some 30 gallon trash bags. They said that it was for the band. We we're cool with that because at the time everybody in "The Morlocks" was experimenting with all times of mind altering substances. In other words we we're taking any kind of drug that we could get our hands on. I was actually the "late bloomer" of the group in that area. I know that many of you will laugh at that remark, (and your  humble narrator will acknowledge that he made up for lost time rather quickly) but seriously I had just started to smoke "weed", ( Tommy was like a huge stoner ) and I didn't really drink. But that is a whole different story in itself.  So they shuffled us into the dinning area and helped us haul our gear inside.

Tommy "Stoner" Clark

      At the time "The Morlocks" where using primarily all "Vox" equipment, including drums and guitars, except Ted. He had tried using a "Mark IV" teardrop but he was always accidentally hitting the different knobs or the wah wah hand thing on the bridge of the guitar. In "The Gravedigger V" he used a "Fender Coronado" most of the time and once in awhile he would use a "Silvertone". When he joined up with "The Morlocks" he was using a "Harmony Rocket" hollow-body. He would later switch to a solid-body guitar, a 1965 "Gibson Firebird"and he also had this strange guitar called a "Standell". It was super heavy and really evil looking thing. Haven't seen one since then.
    So we set up in the corner of the room. They had built a small stage maybe about 2ft. tall out of wooden crates. I don't think we did a sound check , if I remember correctly we set up and then we had a spaghetti dinner. Seriously! with wine in little white plastic cups.

TED & JEFF

     About 15 min. later people started to mill into the dinning hall and having dinner, drinking, smoking, etc . . . It was a cool scene, we had never been in a place where you could do whatever you wanted and you didn't have to worry about being hassled by the man. After we had finished the dinner and our "nitrous" we hit the stage, so to speak. I think we opened the show with "Project Blue" and everything went ape-shit!!! Beer and whatever was being thrown around along with spaghetti and God knows what else.

UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF FUZZ

    The dinning room turned into a mass swirling pit of people dancing and just going crazy. Back in those early days people would see us (the way we looked) and they would assume we like "The Monkees" or some other Sixties pop band. Then we would come on a just kick the shit out of them with a sonic blast!!!!
     I remember that the show was quite good and crazy and the people loved it. Then again everyone was so fucked up that they probably would have liked "Emerson, Lake, and Palmer" just as much!!!! Most likely even more than us. Easier to do that fucking "Greatfull Dead" hippie dance thing to.  So anyways we went upstairs to our friends "dorm room", I think it was Susan Goddard, which was really strange because if you knew Susan she was a pretty "straight-laced" girl. We went up like four floors, I mean that place was huge. When we entered her room there was a huge painting of "Lou Reed" from the  "Transformer" album painted on the floor and I remember thinking to myself, " the worm has diffidently turn for you sweetheart". A couple of minutes later our host came into the room with a large plastic freezer bag full of white pills.

The Students at Barrington Hall

     He most generously gave us each a handful of pills and went on his way. Of course we took them without asking what the hell they where. They turned out to be mda , mdma would come out later that Year from the Chemistry department at "U.C. Berkley.  Don't remember to much about the rest of the night . . .
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                                           Leighton Koizumi

" BEAT YOUR HEART OUT " The ZEROS Live in Valencia

          This past Saturday night the Zeros performed live in Valencia at the Magazine Club. I was looking forward to seeing my long time friends again. We are all from San Diego, California. They being from the South part "Chula Vista" and myself from the East County "El Cajon", which for some reason most español people find the names somewhat humors. For me the "Zeros "where super important, just as much as the "Ramones"in introducing me to "Punk Rock". For those of you who don't know the History of the band I will give you a little back round on them.

The Zeros  1976

    The Zeros where formed in "Chula Vista", San Diego in 1976 by Javier Escovedo, (guitar, vocals) Robert Lopes, (guitar, vocals) Hector Penalosa, (bass) and Baba Chenelle, (drums). After playing one of their first shows in Los Angeles at the famous "Troubadour" club. Notable was that this was the 1st show for the opening band called "The Germs", with the Zeros next and headlining the show "The Weirdos". 

The Zeros Live @ The Troubadour,  Los Angeles 1977

        Shortly thereafter they would sign up with "Greg Shaw's Bomp Records". In 1977 they would release their 1st record on the "Bomp" label. A 7" featuring the song "Wimp" backed by "Don't push me around." Greg Shaw was really one of the 1st companies to start recording the punk bands with Bomp releasing records not only by the Zeros, but also "The Weirdos", "Iggy and the Stooges", " Stiv Bators", "Devo", "Modern Lovers", "Dmz", "The Romantics", "Spaceman 3", "The Germs" . . . just to name a few.  And in the early Eighties would create "Bomp- Voxx" label for the booming "Garage Punk" Renaissance that was taking place. Releasing such artists as "The Pandoras", "The Gravedigger V", "The Tale-Tell Hearts", "The Miracle Workers", "The Primates", "The Dwarves", "The Morlocks", just to name a few.

Bomp records "Wimp" b/w "Don't push me around"

   The concert last Saturday night in Valencia was a good time had by all. In my opinion the turn-out was a little small , but what lacked in numbers was made up of crazy fans of "The Zeros" and of true "Punk Rock" with everyone dancing, jumping around, singing and generally getting "fucked up" making "Magazine Club" a hot sweaty pit. "The Dream Syndicate" was playing the same night in "Valencia" and with the crisis here in España it wasn't a "bad" turnout. I've seen "The Dream Syndicate" many times in Los Angeles during the Eighties, they where part of the so-called, "paisley underground", ( I always hated that term, made up by the press ) which included bands like "The Long Ryders", "Green on Red", etc. . . I usually found these bands live shows kind of boring. I have to say out of that genre of bands "Rain Parade" was my favorite of the bunch. They later went on to commercial success adding singer "Hope Sandavol" and changing their name to "Mazzy Star". I was honored to be asked to come up and sing "Don't Push Me Around". I just want to state for the record that I wasn't trying to sing the vocal , just the backing vocals, cause everyone including my Wife was like hahahah or jajajajjaja you forgot the lyrics.

      So I got give up to the Zeros and take my hat of to them. It's pretty rare these days that you can go see ( in my opinion ) such an important band still playing live with all it's original members, dating back to 1977, still churning out that good ole dirty rock and roll. It's really quite remarkable. Take it from someone who knows. The Zeros have about a Week left of gigs here in España , so if their going to be in your town I strongly suggest that you go and see the show.

"WHAT YOU SAY GIRL"

           Future plans for the Zeros? Who knows the future? What do you know think this is "Psychic Friends Network"!!! I can tell you that Robert aka "El Vez" continues his successful solo carer as "El Vez" and as an actor and playwright. Meanwhile Javier continues to write and record his solo projects , which I think are very underrated , see for yourself!!!
        So just some quick thanks to a few people for making the show happen. First to the Zeros for putting on the kind of show that we have become accustomed to. To all our friends at "Magazine Club", Varo and Paloma, and to my Wife Carola, (it was her Birthday and she put up with me acting a fool) !!!!
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                                     LONG LIVE THE ZEROS !!!!!!!!!!!

"EL VEZ"

****  LEIGHTON KOIZUMI

YOU CALL THIS A TORTILLA ???

" YOU GO NOW " *** The Joys of touring China - Part II

YUMMY

      The first thing that strikes you about China right out of the gate, is it's super ultra pollution. Seriously within one day you will start to develop black snot. This is do to the industrial building boom that is going on, they are building shit anywhere they can. And also they have "coal factories" everywhere. Which is crazy! I'm not a "hippie" or anything like that but it's pretty nasty to see like this giant coal factory draining water right into these rice patty crops that the local farmers are growing. That's cool if you want your baby to have like a "blowhole" or a "unicorn horn". The National soundtrack of China is like thousands of people hawking out "loogies" everywhere. I used to see those people wearing those surgical masks and I thought like it's was because of the "bird flu" or some other virus, or a Michael Jackson fixation. But it is simply because of the air quality.

DUDE !! DON'T COUGH ON ME !!!

    Let me just back track a bit, I agreed to this madness without even knowing half the band. Joe the Morlocks bass player was having triplets, so he wasn't going nowhere. We got Gabe from the "Fuzztones" and Nic recruited  "Slim Jim Phantoms" ( the Stray Cats ) kid, who was this 18 year old chubby kid from "Beverly Hills" to play drums. I had never played with these guys before so now I was going to go to China and meet them there for a two Week tour without even one practice. Gabe was cool , he had some strange habits and almost caused a riot in "McDonalds", will get to that later. But the drummer kid , I'm going to call him "the little drummer boy" was always complaining that he was tired of lugging around his symbols and he was always was hungry. He was basically a spoiled kid from "Beverly Hills".  The guy that had invited us over and was a contact from Nic. He was the one that set up the tour and was going to be the on the tour as the tour manager and was the only one that spoke Chinese. "Gabe". He turned out to be the most American looking dude, curly red hair, super white, freckles, I mean the guy looked like "Ron Howard" from "Happy Days". I was thinking when we met him at the airport in Shanghai, Uh oh  . . .

Gabe our "Chinese Tour Manager"

  Our first two shows where going to be the biggest both outside festivals "The Nanjing International Music Festival" and the other I can't recall the name, doesn't matter though. Things weren't looking so bad at first we we're being shuttled to a 5 star hotel where all the performers where staying. We even had like two personal assistants and like two bodyguards. When we arrived to the hotel we where informed that none of the "Foreign" bands where going to be aloud to perform on orders from the Government. So we got to hang around for two days in a five star hotel and go to the festival with shitty Chinese bands, that wanted to be like "Green Day".  I was able to find a vendor who would sell us 5th's of "Jim Beam" for about 8 bucks and some crappy weed, so it was all bad at first.

WOW!!!  ROCK STARS

  Gabe, our bass player was always wandering off and not telling us which is a pain in the ass when your walking around with all your shit trying to stay in a group. But in China it's a nightmare. And he was one of those who subscribe to the whole philosophy of "no one is going to tell me what to do". Well that doesn't work to good when your in a band, cause I'm going to tell you what to do and what not to do. I get told what to do and I pretty sure everybody a some junction in their lives get the same and have to do shit that you don't really want to. I never understood that kind of thinking, I guess it makes you, at the time feel like a rebel, but it's just not to realistic. " It's my way or the highway Mr.Pink " . . .

HAHA!  LEIGHTON JUST FELL OFF THE TOP BUNK

     Here's a good example , one night after a show we where looking for something to do , nothing really so we all decided to stop by "Kentucky Fried Chicken" and get something to take back to our shitty hotel. By now the hotels had progressed from five star to no star hotels. While we we're waiting me and Gabe sat down at a table and there's like a tray with some chicken , fries and like a "Mu Flurry" some shit like that.  Out of the blue Gabe reaches over and like takes two pieces of chicken and some fries and starts to shove it in his mouth. I'm thinking, hmm maybe the owner of this meal that Gabe is raping is in the restroom.  Sure enough like thirty seconds later this big ole Chinese guy comes out of the bathroom and I know it's his shit. I elbow Gabe so he will stop before this guys sees this. The guys walks back to his table and sits down. Cool , then I notice out of the corner of my eye that he is inspecting his unhappy meal. Shit ! Now he's looking around. Gabe is looking up and whistling! Come on dude!!! Little does Gabe know that all down the front of his black shirt are the crumbs of the chicken. The guy see this and starts freaking out , he goes to the front counter all screaming and shit and then he starts to get out his cell phone and starts making all these calls, screaming in Chinese like he's like some big Wu Tang Boss or something. Gabe and little drummer boy are freaking also cause the guy has got a big black tattoo of a Swastika on his forearm. Which was a Buddhist thing way before a Nazi thing.  So I smooth everything out by telling Gabe, "well dude, if you don't want to get your ass beat by 20 of his friends with bamboo sticks I suggest that you offer to go and buy him whatever he wants off the menu."         

It's locked!!! So that's why they call it "The Forbidden City" ???

      After Chinese Swastika guy calmed down Gabe went and got him a new meal. When Gabe came back to the table he was, "that fat fucker ordered an extra "McFlurry" !!!!
      So just all this kind of crazy shit would happen on a daily routine. I would have people come up to me and say "Wow" your band is really cool!! But your Grandfather killed my Grandfather". I'm half Japanese and most Chinese don't like us so much. I really didn't know who to respond to that. Sorry?
       Anyways if your planing a tour of China, my advice to you is  "DON'T DO IT" !!!

KILLING THEM SOFTLY WITH MY SONG

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                                                                                   LEIGHTON KOIZUMI  ***

  

" YOU GO NOW " !!! *** The joys of touring China - part 1

          The last tour that I did with "The Morlocks" was about a Year and a half ago . We had set up a Two Week tour of China. I just want to state for the record that I didn't have anything to do with that whole shenanigan.  It sounded cool at the time . Ima going to warn you beforehand, it may sound like I'm "bitching", but I'm not trying to do it in a mean spirited way mind you , but yeah ok, it's still "bitching" . . .  Oh where do I start? I'm going to skip the whole ( had to go to Madrid three times, my Wife trying to explain everything to Immigration authorities , the cost a cool 500euros, etc, etc etc) getting a Visa for China.

Chinese Car-Pool Lane

         So you may get a laugh from this or if your in a band, you can use this as kind of a "what to expect guide". For those of you who where sleeping during "History Class" or if you don't get out much I'll remind you that China is a Communist Country. There is no Gmail, Hotmail, Facebook, etc. . . You can get an account on the black market , you pay for a URL, or whatever it's called. So that means that there are no companies that rent Sprinters ( vans ) or backline equipment, or anything else that is required to tour. I mean I couldn't find a pack of "rolling papers" in the whole Goddamn Country. Seriously , I was told later the reason they don't have "rolling paper" or tabacco pouches is because the dollar goes along way in China, the Euro even more so. It will cost you about 50 cents for a pack of good cigarettes. So this means that you have to make your tour by Plane, Trains, Taxi, and motorized Rickshaw and Metro. China's population is 1, 344 , 130 , 000 which is really insane when you have to fight your way thru every train station . People for the most part in China don't really use the wait in line calmly method , more like a human stampede. You kind of feel like your at a "The Who" concert.And everybody is carrying or hauling mountains of boxes and carts , buckets of "live" fish , it's really amazing for like the 1st day of getting you feet stepped on like 200 times or run over.

Trying to find the rest of the guys in a train station

        
     So I adapted to the "I'll block you or run your ass over with my suitcase"technique". I had a really good suitcase heavy and it was the kind with four wheels. Remember we we're also hauling around guitars in hard cases, symbols, and other shit like chords and pedals , along with all our luggage. Man, that really sucked. When I say take a train , I don't mean like a 2 or 4 hour train ride, more like 10 to 14 hour train ride. The trains have these small cabins with a triple bunk bed on the left and on the right so it's supposed to accommodate 6 people . But you never get the whole crew in the same car, usually you all get separated in different cabins. I seemed to always get stuck in the one with the whole Chinese family , Grandma included , oh let's not forget the two roosters in a cage. Your basically stuck on your little bed. You can walk down a narrow hallway to the bathroom or the food cart. When I say "bathroom" i mean a wiggling , jiggling hole in the floor. The odor was so super nasty , The scent resembling like a dirty beavers den. I only took one poop on the train the whole two Weeks! I also fell of the very top bunk and fucked my back up one night. I was trying to climb down to go to guess where??? The bathroom!!! Yeah !!! Well in the middle of my "Spidey" decent the train jolted and I fell like 10 feet and hit my back on the corner of the bottom bunk. It fucking hurt so bad i was just sitting there in the dark , but then the 300 pound Chinese lady in the bottom bunk starting hitting me in the head with a rolled up news paper , like I was trying to sneak into her bunk or something , yea right. But with all the commotion Nic came over and helped me out. When your train arrives you have to disembark and that's a cluster fuck. Then you gotta figure out where to exit and then you have to find 3 taxis in a row or 3 of those Rickshaw things and you have to try and explain to all three drivers that they need to follow each other and also where your going. It takes 3 taxis for a group of 6 with guitars and luggage. And you have to try explain to them the directions and that always is a pain in the ass . They never follow each other , they just take off. Your like putting stuff in the third taxi and like the first taxi just takes off, and your like standing there "what the fuck"?and most of the time for some reason the tour manager is in the first taxi with the directions and he is the only one that speaks Chinese, fucking smart , no ?

Lenny and Gabe killing time on the train

      In China when your touring they basically give you nothing. A rider , now that's funny. No hotel or house, no dinner, no food, no backstage, no beer for the band, ( we started to just bring our own beers ) you have to pay for everything. Even though it's super cheap it will suck up all your money. Since there is no companies that rent backline you have to use whatever equipment they have at the venue. It's always shit , cheap Chinese amps you've never heard of or like "heavey metal"Marshall amps that suck. The drums are always shit and broken so you have to fix them and try to find a floor tom or a symbol stand. It's like building a "Frankenstein". Usually the owner is the booker, the barman, the doorman, and the sound man. Notice how I put sound man last. Here's a typical day, get everyone together at the shitty hotel get the cabs, go to the train station, buy the tickets, wait around in the station with all the other huddling masses , which have no problem just starring at you for like 5 min. It's like "can I help you"? Then you gota do the "Road Warrior" thing to board the train. We learned real quick to try and get to your cabin first so you would have somewhere to put your guitar case and luggage, because the cabins have very limited space and you don't want to have to keep your shit on your bunk. Now you have to take a 10 hour train ride, ( China is fucking huge ) Then when you arrive to your destination you have to do the whole "Road Warrior" thing again, Then the whole taxi convoy thing and try and find the club, which you never can. It's like playing the "Lotto" seeing if everybody is going to make it to the same destination. You usually arrive at the club at 8:00. You have to fix the gear or find something that works so now you only have time to do a line check because they want you to start playing at 9:00 because there's some kind of curfew and you have to stop by 11:00. And at 11, I mean everyone splits, it's not like people are hanging out and stuff I mean everyone is just gone. It's kind of strange. This was the the first time ever on a tour that I had been back at the hotel and in the bed by 12:00. We would usually get some noodles and some warm beers, ( it's kind of hard to find cold beers at most places do to the fact that they can't afford a refrigeration machine or an ice machine) and go back to the room. Take a couple of diazepan and watch our favorite Chinese TV show. It's like this dumb dance contest show, with like cheerleaders and Hip-hop dancers . The reason we liked the show was because of the name it was called, "Come Dancing", but they spelled it "Cum Dancing". It was pretty funny. The television is under government control so I guess that's the closet thing they have to porn. 

****************************************************** To be continued . . .
                                                
                                                                                                                   *** Leighton Koizumi

Nic and Lenny on the way to the gig

PUSHING "WAY" TOO HARD

          I had just met Sky Saxon back in the mid Eighties at Greg Shaws Cavern Club. Sky had just recently resurfaced after Years of ambiguity, as Sky "Sunlight" Saxon.  I think that this new handle, "Sunlight" was a direct result of him living in Hawaii. Having lived in Honolulu for 12 Years myself , I know Hawaii can really put that zap in your head. Sky was now back living in California, attempting to resurrect his solo career. This was before the reformation of the Seeds.

         He was playing with Jeff and Steve McDonald from "Red Kross" and Jeff's girlfriend, ( can't remember her name ) who would later become a big star as the guitarist for the "Bangs", who would eventually change the name of the group to "The Bangles". To be quite honest his beginning attempts where pretty awful and kind of weird.  He couldn't remember the lyrics to the songs so he would go on these 7 Min. diatribes about the Government and if he was the President, etc . . . It's kind of interesting for about 3 or 4 min. then your want to get drink ,  puff on a joint,  whatever get's you thru the night. I would eventually hook up with Sky after I moved to L.A. He had already reformed "The Seeds", had done some touring and was working on a new record. At the time I was doing "Featherwood Junction" and reforming " The Morlocks". The thing about Sky is, that guy could party and would take anything. Remember by this time Sky was no "spring chicken", he must have been in his mid 60's.

The usual suspects "The Cavern Club" Los Angeles

        One day I ran into Sky at my guitarists ( Bobby Bones ) house. At the time Bobby was supplementing his bank account by selling Cocaine. After shooting the shit with Sky, Bobby pulled me into the next room and said, " Brother you gota help me out. Sky has been here for 3 days smoking crack and if he dies in my bedroom I'm going to have some problems." So I went back inside the bedroom and told Sky, "look man , there's no more coke and your out of money so you should probably call "Honey" and have her pick you up. At the time "Honey" was this 300 pound crack whore from Compton that Sky was living with. "Honey" wasn't having none of it, so we called my Brother Darren and had him drive Sky back to Compton later that night.  Looking back that was a stupid idea at the current time.

SKY SAXON

       Sky wasn't making any sense and to tell you the truth he kind of looked and smelled like a "homeless guy".  That was the last time I saw Sky alive. About a Year later I got a call from the States asking if i would come over and preform with the surviving members of "The Seeds"at Sky's memorial concert at the "Echo Plex" in Los Angeles. 

      I distinctly remember the day he died. I was touring with "The Morlocks" at the time, playing a show in France with "The Fleshtones". Someone came backstage and said," Sky Saxon has just died!" Before we could comprehend this the backstage door opened agian and we heard this, "Michael Jackson" just died!  Anyways I  flew back to Los Angeles for the memorial show. I was quite honored to sing "Mr. Farmer", "Out of the Question", and "The Wind Blows Her Hair". It was a little bit surreal , I was up there with Dennis ( original keyboard player ), "The Electric Prunes", "The Wooly Bandits", Don Bolles (Germs), Billy Corgan, and the guitarist from "Wilco".

Billy Corgan

     It was a beautiful night and a fitting tribute to Sky. Sky Saxon was the real deal , he lived, breathed, and made music like a true icon. Not some "Rock Star Bullshit" , like the poet -rock God, made up by some publicist . . .

    I'll take "Sky" over "Morrison" any day !!!!!!
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  Sky you are missed . . .
R.I.P.


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Sky Saxons Memorial Concert

 

 

 

 *** Leighton Koizumi

" MY POP'S GOLFING " . . .

Jeff Lucas

        After the demise of The Gravedigger V , The Morlocks decided to leave San Diego and move to San Francisco for a number of reasons. At the time most bands if they where going to relocate it was to L.A. We had played many times in L.A. and had alot of friends and support there, but I really didn't want to live there at the time. Also at the time Jeff our bass player had already split with our guitarists girlfriend up to San Francisco , which made matters ( how should I say this ) complicated. He phoned us and told the rest of the group that we need to relocate to S.F. , that it was paradise .
     Jeff was the oldest guy in the band , I think he was about 5 or 6 Years older than the rest of us. He and I where the primary song writers for the band and he also had alot more experience in life in general. With his outgoing personality , humor , and  talent , we really looked up to him and he was definitely one of the leaders early on in The Morlocks.



 So Ted , Markie , and I packed up our few belongings and decided to follow Jeff up to San Francisco and continue with The Morlocks. Jeff told us that he had hooked us all up with places to stay , etc . . . ( we had never been to San Francisco ) so we didn't have any friends up there at the time , or people that we knew.  So we said, "fuck it" and Ted went to go rent a van for us to move. After waiting for 3 hours Ted shows up with one of those huge 70's family station wagons , the kind with the fake wood paneling on the sides , totaly "Brady Bunch" looking thing. So we loaded up the equipment and a few meager belongings and got in. I had nothing to keep me in San Diego , and with the reality of The Morlocks breaking up I was ready to split. I mean the only thing I was leaving behind was a "heroin habit" and some Junkie friends. I would make some new ones later in San Francisco.
   Being young , dumb , and full of cum , we didn't realize that the station wagon only got about 12 miles to the gallon , and that San Francisco was that far from San Diego . So after 2 days we arrived in San Francisco. For some reason we ended up in the middle of the " Castro " during the " Gay Pride Parade". Don't ask me how , i wasn't driving and Ted was very adamant about nobody else driving because the car was under his name and he didn't want any problems. He told us this as he was driving and making lines of speed.

Ted Freidman

   We couldn't get a hold of Jeff for about 8 hours , no cell phones back then. When we finally hooked up with him we met him at a small one car garage that he was living in. So as i recall the question of " I got places for you guys to stay " didn't really come up. So after discussing all the great plans he had for the Morlocks , he told us he had to split and he would see us tomorrow.  Jeff was kind of an enigma wrapped up in a see-thru tortilla at the time.
   So we the three of us piled back into the car and tried to figure out what to do next. We drove around for about 20 min. then Ted said " fuck it " I'm going to call Ron Rimisite.
Ron was like our mentor and producer of the Gravedigger V.
No answer , but i remember Ted leaving a message , " Ron!!! help us, we're in San Francisco and surrounded by homos". What to do now? We had spent most of our money on the trip up. We where lucky though because the Week before my parents had given me 500 dollars in "Travelers Checks", which would feed us for the next couple of days. So we drove around S.F. for about an hour trying to "Brainstorm" hahahah. Well we ended up near the Sea Cliff area. We had decided to Not return the station wagon because now it was going to become our house for the next Two Weeks. I'm remember saying, "don't worry, they'll understand".
    Well to make a long story longer Markie went on a scouting expedition and found a super posh members only Country Club. We figured out what time the golf course had the fewest people playing , and that's when we would sneak into the locker rooms and take showers. The first time we did it , right in the middle of our grooming , two members came in and i suppose we didn't look like the most typical members. They demanded an explanation as to why we where there. To which Markie replied , " my pop's golfing " . . . and that worked for about 4 showers in 10 days . . .

Mark Mullen

         
By then we we're cold , broke , and wanted to go back home to San Diego. Little did we know that in 3 Weeks we would be playing in front of 50,000 people in Golden Gate Park , with the Jefferson Airplane , John Lee Hooker , etc . . .

                      **** Leighton Koizumi

     Since I have been receiving numerous requests for the lyrics of "My Friend The Bird", I have procrastinated on writing them out. So today I am going to try to the best of my ability to remember them. If you need a translation from English to whatever you speak , that's on you , unless you want it in Spanish or Japanese.
     Just a side note, when i wrote this song in 1984 I was a little apprehensive about it. Up until then all the songs i had composed where pretty much primitive 2 to 3 chord garage punk songs. This was kind of my first try at writing a slower and different kind of song. I remember using Q65 ( the Dutch band ) as kind of a role model for this song.
   To my surprise "My Friend The Bird " turned out to be one of the most popular "Morlock" songs even to this day.

                                  MY FRIEND THE  BIRD

   Siting, in the smallest house in the neighborhood
     clutching a frame of despair
   Reach, in my empty pocket for the money i spent
     when I was happy , talking about my friend the bird , who just flew out of my mind.
   I climbed on his back and flew away, to a place much better than this.
    We never worried about anything, and I never thought of you , no, no, no, no
   I never thought of you.
              My friend the bird , well he flew away . . .
              My friend the bird , never to return . . .
  I climbed on his back and flew away , to a place where his friends where mine
    no track of time we we're so happy, and i never thought of you, no, no, no, no,
    I never thought of you.
             My friend the bird , well he flew away
             My friend the bird, never to return
   A girl , down the street shot him in the head, a real bad, bad, drug
     I picked him up and put him in a box, buried in the yard , talking bout my friend the bird , who just flew out of my mind.
   I climbed on his back and flew away , to a place much better than this. We never worried about anything, and I never thought of you, no,no,no,no , I never thought of you . . .
          My friend the bird, well he flew away
          My friend the bird, never to return . . .
  _______________________________________________________________________________

                                                  ---- Leighton Koizumi
Now your going ask me what it's about i bet . . ..

***This song has "backward masking" on it . I swear to god , can you figure out what it's saying.

        Ok , I just cracked open a Steinburg Beer , it pretty much tastes like "Pabst" or "Tecate". You can get a 12 pack for around two euros, and with 4.9% alcohol content , that my friend is an offer i can't refuse. I need some kind of inspiration to figure this shit out. Well i did also have an coffee so I'm kind of under the influence of a Catholic speedball. As some of you might know the Gravedigger V are performing the opening night of "The Funtastic Dracula Festival". Which is not the problem , the problem is the last time i saw these cats, ( the guys in the band ) was in Milano 3 Months ago. That translates into, "haven't practiced in 3 Months". So for eight days in the middle of October i gota , play the Festival, record a new 7", and possibly play a show in Valencia.
        The "clusterfuck" of the matter is that Marcello , Claudio, and Simone live in Sardinia. Isdiro now lives in Berlin. On top of it all they are all in "other" touring bands that tour alot. Now i gota get these bastards all over here to España and keep them here for Eight days , and out of jail. There going have to fly "Shitty Ryan Air". Ryan Air is like this cheap European Airlines that flies only in Europe ( for those of you who don't know it). But for an example a ticket from España to Italy will cost you like 11 euros , but they charge you 50 euros to bring a guitar , crazy shit like that .
     Ohh I just realized something , we have to practice to. Shit !! Well I don't want to suck to hard. Man I hate doing all this like logistical shit, emails, phone calls, etc . . . I'm from the School of "I'll send you a smoke signal" . . . But I'm going to straighten up and fly right , I'm gona getyer  done . . .
     But first things first, I'm going crack open another "Steinburg". . .

                                              --- Leighton Koizumi

                                                                                                                          Sept. 4 , 2012

HEY ALL YOU LOSERS . . .
       I'm not one to stick my toe in the water, I prefer to just jump in even if it's a "belly-flop". So that's what I'm going to do with this here personal blog. Why ? Well everyone keeps telling me that I should write my memoirs and given, I have had a pretty strange, dangerous, and interesting life . . .
But with my short attention span I figured that a blog is ( for me ) a more realistic endeavor than writing a novel.  Also since I'm the original guy in the Gravedigger V and the Morlocks, I will be covering a lot of subjects concerning not only my bands, projects, producing, but other groups past and present .  Things that I dig or think are funny, cool, or stupid, etc . . .  For example my thoughts and reporting, photos of the upcoming " Funtastic Dracula Festival " in October. I will be including links to blogs and a lot of other cool shit . . .
   Basically there will be nothing taboo, no rules. I like to think my life as an "open book" ( that hasn't been read ) . . . Plus I need something to do . . .
SO . . . if you can keep your feelings in your back pocket and are not easily offended it's probable that YOU are also a "Born Loser".  If you are easily offended and L7 ( not my problem ) well . . . I except "Hate-Mail" . . .  So stay tuned for more , "same bat channel", "same bat time" . . .

One last ramble . . . this whole blog thing is new to me so I'm trying to make it come together like butt cheeks. The best advice I can give you concerning "Born Losers" is pray for patience. hahahahah.
Hope you join and spread the disease . . .
So turn up the Fuzz, turn up the reverb, and play LOUD !!!!

                            ---- Leighton Koizumi