Feb 05, 2013 Imprint Long Beach: T.S.O.L., Dengue Fever, and Joe Escalante (The Vandals)
The April Imprint conference is coming up quickly, and we’re proud to start rolling out the confirmed guests. Kicking off the music panel is the legendary/infamous Jack Grisham from True Sounds of Liberty, The Joy Killer, and The Manic Low. T.S.O.L.’s role in Southern California’s punk rock history was documented in Roger Corman’s 1984 movie Suburbia, in which the Cuckoo’s Nest regulars’ goth-tinged hardcore fuels a raging pit and sets the scene for the trials and tribulations of misfits bound by aggressive and honest music. Yet the long-time Long Beach native is not merely an active (and intense and outside-the-norm as ever) musical force but he’s also an author whose dark memoir/novel has recently been picked up to become a movie.
The roots of Dengue Fever, panelist Chomm Nimol and Zac Holtzman’s psychedelic music group/surf band/Cambodian rock band, come from another Long Beach subculture, Cambodia Town. In fact, I first met the entire group there at a Cambodian restaurant where they sat in with the house band’s instruments and proceeded to freak out and delight the regulars. Since then, Dengue Fever has created its own genre of music and made fans around the world–including Cambodia where its has toured and filmed a documentary. The big news for the group this year is its own label, Tuk Tuk Records, which is re-releasing the largely out-of-print catalog with bonus tracks, live recordings, and remixes. Check it out HERE.
Panel moderator Joe Escalante is no stranger to Long Beach, having grown up in one of its historic homes, frequented the multiple locations of Zed Records, and played an opening set for The Ramones at Fender’s Ballroom on 1st Street in 1986. Besides co-founding and still playing with The Vandals (as well as Sweet and Tender Hooligans) and operating Kung Fu Records, Escalante hosts multiple radio shows, practices law and serves as a judge, and fights bulls (!).