Los Angeles is hands down the psychobilly capitol of the U.S. And no self respecting psychobilly fan would visit the west coast without taking in a concert.
Luckily for me, my good buddy Rich from Black Cat Entertainment is about as plugged into the scene as you can be and told me about a big Rezurex CD release party and show going down in Pomona, CA.
Pomona? Heard of it, never been there and let me tell you for a NYC guy, it’s FAR! but by LA standards, its just down the road (about 50 minutes), on the outskirts of LA.
Now the thing about downtown Pomona, is it has quiet a history of punk and psychobilly music. In fact, to me it seemed sort of a miniature version of what visiting downtown Nashville must be like for country music fans. Now ROOTS country / rock and roll and psychobilly have more in common than you might think; Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley and now Nick 13 (Tiger Army)!
Dead Enderz
In Pomona, there’s the famous “Glass House” and Fox Theatre where the Ramones once performed all kinds of punk and “billy” bands still perform.
All surrounded by cool underground clothing stores, tattoo parlors, burlesque shops and most importantly of course, on this Friday night at least, it was teeming with young street punks. And in front of Angelo’s Italian Cafe, there was a mini-cavalcade of Psychobilly freaks and freakettes of the 1st degree waiting to see The Dead Enderz, Cold Blue Rebels and of course The Rezurex.
Cold Blue Rebels
Yes, Pomona is impressive to say the least and definitely worth the drive, at least on this night.
It started with a band called the Dead Enderz and you and you can catch a clip of one of their performances below.
Next up was a band I had heard of plenty but had never seen, the Cold Blue Rebels. I had heard their shows were high energy but man, as soon as they began their set, and before I could get my trusty little flip cam even rolling, the stand up bass player had fallen off the stage and snapped his stand up bass into 3 parts!
Never to fear, the guy had an electric bass standing by and 2 minutes later the band was back at it for the enthusiastic crowd. I had a feeling this guy, based on his preparation, had snapped a few bass necks before and after the show, he confirmed this was indeed at least his 3rd fall off a stage. Catch a clip of CBR (after the stage fall) below:
The final act of the night was the Rezurex, a staple on the Los Angeles psychobilly scene and who were releasing a new CD. A clip of the Rezurex is below:
Rezurex
Next stop the other LA.. Latin America!