12/4/4

I saw Vagrant tonight, and I've got the fat lip to prove it.

They've been on a long hiatus looking for a new drummer, and this was there debut show with a kick-ass 16-year-old. All the energy was there, and you couldn't tell one bit this was there first time in front of a crowd in at least a year. Okay, they had a backyard Thanksgiving warm-up party, but you get my point. A bit of shoving went on during the set, but when they got shouted into an encore, a serious fucking pit went off. So, the first blow of the new metal onslaught has been thrown. LB will rise again.

Let's play a little Long Beach metal musical chairs. D.J. and Chino were in Verdugo back in the day, but Timmy stole them away to start Vagrant. D.J., Timmy's older brother, didn't last long, but became a hard-core crew and manager for the band. Meanwhile, I was singing (poorly) in Premonition, with Pat on drums and Sam on guitar. Mike was one of our crew. I was replaced by Steve the same time Pat left to join Zen. Years later, out of the ashes of Premonition, Mike joined Sam and Steve to form StoneBlue. Meanwhile, Todd and Troy were brothers who were both on the Vagrant crew, but on the side during the downtime they formed S.m.F. Steve left StoneBlue to be replaced by Turley, and D.J. joined on guitar. Now, as StoneBlue fades away, Turley is rumored to have another project, D.J. is moving away, and Mike has joined S.m.F. who've lost their bassist.

My hope is to be the S.m.F. sound guy. My hope is to bring Creepshow, S.m.F. and Vagrant as a package bill to several venues. My hope is to turn this into a mini-label and an up-and-down the west-coast tour-de-force. The journey of a thousand metal shows starts with one pit.

And I've got the fat lip to prove it.

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