My Old Band - Dragula

My good friend Greg of Goblinhaus.com is planning on devoting a part of his web site to my old band, Dragula, since we were a garage rock group with quite a few horror related songs to our credit. Our sound was straight out of the garage with some surf and punk rock thrown in for good measure. We played the Lucy’s Record Shop circuit in Nashville for almost 4 years before quietly imploding. Until just recently I had buried the band in my memory. I didn’t want to have anything to do with the past, but it managed to sneak up on me. I dusted the old 4 track tapes off and listened with the distance of almost 7 full years and I was surprised. We had been really good and perhaps even ahead of our time. So now we will be enshrined at goblinhaus soon complete with old pictures and some audio tracks. We might even sell a CD. If you’re really brave and want to buy a CD without hearing us just drop me a line. What follows is the story of Dragula and all of the bands I was in before. At the moment there has been no after, but that’s okay. The very act of exhuming the ghost of Dragula has resulted in a run of new songwriting for me that I haven’t seen in years.

It was the fall of 1993. The air was cool and the leaves were falling. I was busy burying a punk rock band concept named Kill Whitey that had never gotten beyond rehearsal stage when the sky grew dark and ominous. Wolves began to howl and lightning struck the headstone of another former band of mine, Michael Landon’s Ghost. It split in two leaving a smoldering heap of stone. It was time to get out of this band graveyard before something really bad happened. I said my last goodbyes to Kill Whitey and began to walk away when the ground began to shudder beneath my feet. I heard a sound like thunder. I smelled rotten flesh and gasoline. I turned and saw a dragster emerging from Kill Whitey’s shallow grave. A vampire was at the wheel. He snatched me up as he roared by and said, “Blah, you will now lead a mighty garage band inspired by Thee Headcoats and The Sonics named Dragula. We shall speed to Lucy’s Record Shop and arrange your first gig, just make sure it is after dark, blah.”

The band was made up of: myself, Wally Bangs, on guitar and vocals, John “Whitey aka Dr. Groovy” Hudson on guitar, Toby “Black Belt” Holmes on bass, and Brian Hickman on drums. We practiced in the front window of Neal’s Lighting Showroom in Murfreesboro weekly until we were ready for our first gig at Lucy’s Record Shop in Nashville. We played with Ballpeen Hernia to a sparse but appreciative crowd. We had a jet fueled genius blast playing so we kept it up until the end of 1997. The most notable shows were opening for Man Or Astro-Man?, Nine Pound Hammer, and the Woggles. We also played some shows at the ‘Boro club in Murfreesboro and we once shared a bill with local legends, jack, at a redneck bar named Gentleman Jim’s where each band had to do two one hour sets. We made it through alive and didn’t even need chicken wire across the stage.

Somewhere in the four years we managed to contribute two tracks to Spinout Records first CD release: “Rock, Don’t Run Vol. 1” that came out in 1995. Local weatherman and all around cool guy, Leland Statom came down one night to introduce the band at a Lucy’s show. We played a Halloween show where John got to emulate his hero, Gene Simmons, and spit up blood. We made him leave his fire breathing act at home. Toby left the band to get married in 1995 and was replaced by Drew Rydberg just in time for the Spinout tracks to get recorded. Drew is a great guy, but the band lost a spark with Toby’s absence. We flew under the radar of the Nashville music critics and perhaps didn’t promote ourselves enough. Drew left the band to go to work as a recording engineer in Nashville. A girl who looked like Wednesday Addams named Christy joined the band and worked really hard to learn our songs.

I decided to steer the band in a different direction toward the end of 1997. I was bored with our garage rock sound and wanted to make punchier and brighter sounding songs. Power pop was my new religion and it was leading me to the band graveyard again. We would lay Dragula to rest and change our name to the Most. Everybody played along with me. We vowed to promote ourselves better. I quickly got us a show in Huntsville, Alabama, but in the graveyard storm clouds were brewing again.

John started to miss rehearsals. Even after we were booked to play a show during Lucy’s Record Shop’s last month of operation in January, 1998, John still kept missing practice. Something called GIA was looming on the horizon and I was blind as a bat. Christie, Brian, and I practiced as The Most and it sounded good. It would have been better with John’s sizzling Gibson SG fretwork, but it was okay. I was revved up for the Huntsville gig. The night before I called Brian to coordinate the logistics and he told me he couldn’t make the show. I was taken back, but it wasn’t the end of the world. Until he then told me he was quitting the band. He gave no reason. I had not given enough blood to the drag racing vampire and now he bit my neck. Dragula was done and it took the Most with it.

I did play the show at Lucy’s the next month as the Most with help from Jimmy and Brett from jack. It was a good show, but it wasn’t Dragula. What made Dragula great was the interaction between us. We’d spend half a practice talking about cartoons and horror movies. We’d tell silly jokes and discuss our favorite professional wrestlers. The band was like a club, especially in the early days when Toby was around. It couldn’t be slicked up into something different as long as we were together.

John and Brian went on to play in Girls In Action. GIA sprang up in 1997 while Dragula was still going on and they never bothered to let me know. I guess they didn’t want to break my heart. After that split up they went their separate ways for a few years. John played with Trauma Team and The What Four while Brian formed the Reverbians. They have recently reunited in the Exotic One’s who look like they will be big. Toby got married to the daughter of the owner of Neal’s Lighting, moved to Lynchburg, Tennessee and I haven’t heard from him since. From a Yahoo lookup: A Drew Rydberg was a founding member of the Voight-Kampff Trio with Brady Sharp and Matt Hamilton. He also collaborated in a duo with Bill Stinson in a project called Sound From Squares. Knowing his love of John Zorn, I’m pretty sure this is our Drew.

I went on to oblivion in the musical sphere. The Most only played the one show. I continued to write songs and record on my four track recorder, but I’m afraid the only thing left for me is strolls in the band graveyard. I visit them all from time to time. Humor a man without a band and take a stroll with me as I revisit my rock and roll past.

The first band’s gravestone is crumbling and the weeds are knee high, but I can still make out the initials D.L.D.S. which stood for Dalai Lamai Death Squad. It came together in 1988 after I wrote a song about a pizza restaurant I once worked at. The song was a simple three chord bash called “Work Sucks”. Once it looked like this would end up being a real group we decided to change the name to something a little less controversial. So next to its grave lies the marker for the Dislocated.

The Dislocated were a fun band. We did some Black Sabbath, Danzig, Black Flag, Odd Man Out, and Descendents covers plus a handful of originals. It was punk with a metal edge. We played in front of the student body of my old high school, Riverdale, and caused a near riot. The teachers didn’t know what to think of all the slam dancing. We were the last band to play a complete set at legendary Murfreesboro venue Jabbs. It was the last night of shows and the punks had taken over. jack was the last band to go on and the owner pulled the plug a few songs into their set because everybody was stealing pieces of the club. It was a decadent youthful era. I try and place flowers at this grave every spring.

The summer band would have to be Michael Landon’s Ghost. I’ve fixed their headstone and it’s shining once again. This was the first group I played guitar in. MLG was a kickass Didjits loving trio with an emphasis on originals and Ramones covers. We blazed a fast trial through open mike nights at the ‘Boro. Our biggest show was opening for Bedlam Hour at the Pantheon in Nashville, but our finest was a gig at a skateboard park in Decherd, Tennessee. The kids went nuts for us with a mosh pit full of slamming bodies that threatened to lift us off the stage. Next to its memorial lies a smaller but no less impressive monument for Pipebomb.

Pipebomb was MLG with a new more explosive name. We thought we were going to be big time and we didn’t need any hassles with the estate of Michael Landon. We kept playing shows in Nashville and were heading for punk rock glory when I pulled the plug. A pattern had developed with me of never being satisfied. When the unsatisfactory feeling settled over me like a horde of zombies eating my brain I would reverse my current stance to counteract it. If I had long hair, I’d shave my head. If I was studying hard, I’d stop studying. Pipebomb was a good band with a future so I nixed it. Just like that, it was over. My biggest thrill was being written about by Erica Jones in her Sky Flying By fanzine. I wish I knew what has happened with her since those days.

A few years of jamming with Brian and Toby resulted in the Kill Whitey idea. The name was inspired by watching one too many blaxploitation films. The music was sub atomic Mudhoney inspired sludge rock. It was not going anywhere until we added John Hudson. A few weeks after he joined I ran into the drag racing vampire and Dragula was born. This is the horror show circle I now go round and round. The band graveyard is spooky with regret and the bad notes sound extra chilling, but I still take comfort there. I’m sure that when I die the zombie remnants will still be ringing with the noise and the love of playing rock and roll. And who knows, there might just be another headstone to put there one day.