Quincy C. Kirk III

July 18

Went up to the studio in Hackestwon NJ to talk to Quincy C. Kirk III a.k.a Quincy Smash. Quincy is a large gentleman with a shaved head who performs in a luchador mask. He played drums in Michale Graves' first band, the Mopes, later played with Michale Graves' solo act, and now plays for the legendary Murphy's Law. Not too shabby.

Interview went longer then expected because Quincy stole the show. Completely hilarious, and full of energy. Talked about Graves' early days and how in his mid 30's he doesn't think he can keep playing much longer. Right now he works at a camp for kids... THEY LET THIS NUT AROUND CHILDREN!

Our new policy in editing will be "when in doubt, cut to Quincy". This interview is sure to entertain. In 2005 I saw Michale Graves play, and the line-up was Michale, J-Sin, JV, and Quincy. Now the only one left to talk to in this film is Michale. All we need to do is set the date and it's on!

Joe Pla & Nelson Pla

July 7th 2009

I went to my 1st home town, Cliffside Park New Jersey, to find the Pla brothers, Joe and Nelson. They currently have a band called Clueless, but in the past Nelson briefly played drums for Empire Hideous, and Joe helped found and played guitar for SpySociety99. For some reason I was compelled to bring a case of beer and the boys had at it.

These guys were hilarious, it was like watching the Smothers Brothers. You'd swear everything they did was pre-planned. I'd ask a question and Nelson would answer for about five minutes, then Joe would give a single sentence answer and Nelson would lean forward apologizing for Joe talking too much. Great guys, and really good musicians.

They both knew Myke for a long time, in fact Joe was the guy who would whip Myke on stage.... really whipped Myke!!! When I asked him how he felt about that he said he told Myke if he isn't satisfied he can always beat him with a 2x4. They were both very cool, and when we left I ate with the crew at Hiram's Hotdog stand (from my childhood). Great day.

Father Sebastian

June 30th 2009

Today we were going to interview Father Sebastian. He owns the vampire shop next to the Halloween store in New York City. He makes fangs, lives in Paris, believes he's a vampire and his real name is "Todd". It is an $8 toll for me to get into the city. Myself, Mike Hall and Morgan took off of work to do this interview... and if we didn't have work we'd find something else to do. When we arrived it started down pouring and we had to run with all the equipment. We got to the vampire store. We were informed that Todd had trouble with his passport and never made it out of Paris... 2 days earlier. Too bad, I missed out on asking questions like "Are you a real vampire?" If you answer that question with anything but "No" you should be put into a mandatory labor camp. When I didn't think it could get any worse as I'm leaving the guy behind the counter says to me "Hey, weren't you in Meet Dave". Perfect.

Don Feratu

Don Feratu co-Founded the Empire Hideous with Myke. This is the only original member of Myke's band he is still in touch with. Don plays guitar and wrote many Empire Hideous songs. We had an exterior shoot planned in Don's rose garden but we got rained out. Brian DeCroce joined the project at this point as another director of photography. Met him earlier in the year on craigslist when I was shooting a web-a-sode series with my actress friend Tacey Willis. We are also joined at this point by our permeant photo journalist Morgan Hodgen (Emily went to China or something).

Anyway we ended up shooting in my apartment.... for the second time. Perfect. Part of the appeal of this project was meeting interesting people and going to cool places and I'm talking to Don in the place I watch Curb Your Enthusiasm in my basketball shorts. Don is an example what a lot of the early gothic people ended up doing, which is growing out of it. He talked about how he's way more concerned with how the Giants are doing then music. I guess tastes change and makes me wonder if that can be me in 20 years.

The most emotional part of the conversation came when he talked about how freaked out he was about Myke getting cancer. Great guy and when I asked him to name his other projects he said no, "This was about Myke." Humble too. Well I'll say it. He has a band called the Tombs-Tones and they're awesome. They even did an E.H. cover rockabilly style.

Bobby Lisi/J-Sin Trioxin

June 16 2009

Double header today. 1st we went down stairs from my apartment and into Stomp & Soundz. It's the local record store/goth wear boutique and Bobby Lisi has been the proprietor for 20 years. In addition to having insight on music in general he grew up in Lodi where he knew the Caiafa family, especially Doyle who was his best friend in grade/high school. He also palled around with Danzig/Samhain's Steve Zing, and Myke Hideous sold records in the store next to him many years back. In short he's been "Forest Gumping" his way through my film for years. It was fun speaking with King Sicily (Bobby's other name) even though we talk almost everyday. The fun part about the King is you don't know if he's going to be the opinionated yelling screaming hard ass Italian.... or the VIOLENT opinionated yelling screaming hard ass Italian. I'm kidding, he was very reserved and smiled a lot. It was kinda cool to talk to him for the perspective of a future parent who grew up being the scary goth guy who scared the shit out of parents.

J-Sin was up next in my kitchen. He's one of Myke's best friends as well as colleague. HE TOO played guitar for Michale Graves. It seems like for a while working with Myke Hideous was a right of passage for young North Jersey dark rockers. A few musicians who made their bones with Myke moved on and worked with Michale Graves.

J-Sin also was the guitar tech for Doyle (who he met through Myke's involvement in the Misfits) and the founder of Mister Monster. He briefly played with the Undead and currently plays with Wednesday 13..... J-Sin is a busy guy. He was very insightful on all the people he was worked with, and what he went through to be a musician. J-Sin is big on respect, owning up and doing the right thing. We also discussed how ego sometimes gets in the way. For as much as people give Myke shit for being hard on musicians, J-Sin felt it made him better. Awesome guy and I'm sure we'll meet up again down the line.

Loki

June 14th 2009

Today we when to the studio in Rutherford to speak with Mister Monster/SpySociety99/Gotham Road/Michale Graves guitar player Loki. As we should have expected, it was a bit noisy in the studio, but we worked through it.

Loki was quite and told us he was a bit under the weather. JV Bastard (who has been in 5 different bands with Loki) stopped by as well. Loki is a very reserved guy on camera, but he shared a lot of different information. We spoke about his time in SpySociety99 (which for those who don't know is Myke's rockabilly-esq swing band). He also talked about long term goals for musicians. He said in time, he was going to make the transition to be promoter and spoke about what he thought a promoter should do for bands.

We took a short break and put JV back on camera with Loki to talk about Gotham Road (Michale Grave's metal band). Loki came out of his shell a bit more and they discused working with Michale and they're pet-peeves. They have a lot of strong feeling about Doyle & Chud's band Gorgeous Frankenstein. They felt that a lot of love didn't go into his album, and much more work went into selling hoodies. They see themselves always as musicians before businessmen.

All and all good time.

WorkShop Teaser

This is the first attempt at a teaser. I don't really like it, it uses very little footage that will be used in the film (because we haven't shot it yet). Just took clips of Myke from the "Black Friday" show and sliced in lots of stills of Myke. The film will ultimately be broader then only Myke's story. Myke's book (which this film is based on) can be filled in with much broader strokes then only Myke's story.... this story is about everyone. It can just as easily be about a painter or an actor... or a chief. We've already cut "HIDEOUS" out of the title. The film is now simply "LIVING THE AMERICAN NGHTMARE".

Bouncing Souls

May 21st 2009

Headed to the Jersey shore to interview the Bouncing Souls. They are a childhood favorite band of mine and my friends, so this is very cool for me, personally. We have the same crew as with JV Bastard. Myke knew the Bouncing Souls back in the late 80's when they were still in high school and Myke worked at a record shop. Then in 1997 the Bouncing Souls went to tour Europe for the 1st time and in Wales they recognized a former record store clerk in his Misfits make-up getting ready to do his first Misfits show ever. Very cool small world story.

Bryan Kienlen and Peter Steinkopf were our guest. We parked at Asbury Lanes and waited on the board walk. Bryan and Pete rode up on their Harley's and we followed them to Bryan's apartment. I think we were interrupting dinner. I feel bad about that, but I got to try turkey stir fry with brown rice, ginger and pine apple.... and yes it was incredible.

A lot of the interview had to do with the nomadic lifestyle the Bouncing Souls have had for the past 20 years. They said they've gone as long as 9 months without stopping home, and got very little money for their effort. Here's a band that has a C.D. available in every mall in the country and has toured the world multiple times, but Bryan has a small one bedroom near the beach. Regardless, they seem very content, enthusiastic, and well adjusted. The loved motorcycles, surfing, and punk rock... what can be a better example of America?

1st Official Shoot; JV Bastard

May 19th

We Officially kicked off production today, on May 19th 2009 (Joey Ramones' Birthday, dramatic, huh?). Our 1st interview is JV Bastard who is the bass player for Michale Graves, Gotham Road (Michale's metal project), and Mister Monster (a horror punk band founded by former Empire Hideous member J-Sin Trioxin). We picked to start on JV because of the access he was willing to give and his enthusiasm for being part of the project. He is relatively young so he is giving a current prospective of a hardworking musician in his prime and what he has to go through. Also, given his closeness to Graves and association with Hideous, I figured he had a unique point of view and I can ask a lot of question.... and believe me I came in very over prepared.

JV was an amazing host and we couldn't have started off better. With me was our production assistant Katie, our photo journalist Emily (who is a childhood friend of my girlfriend), and my director of photography Mike Hall (who was fresh off directing his feature film Kids go in the Woods, Kids Get Dead). JV's apartment seemed to be a gathering place for a lot of the guys in the North Jersey, horror rock scene and he had tons of Misfits memorabilia decorating it. We were interrupting their "Uno" night.

JV kicked ass. He was charismatic, positive, and we touched on every aspect of where the film was going. JV spent most of his adult career working with Michale Graves so we spoke a lot about him. At this point Michale Graves and Arturo Vega are the biggest names who have agreed to do an interview. We spent about an hour an a half with JV before wrapping up. I stayed for a couple hours afterwords and we spoke about the Misfits and all the drama involved with that band. JV's former band mate J-Sin Trioxin from Mister Monster and Michale Graves even stopped by. It struck me how different of a guy JV (or myself for that matter) would be if it wasn't for some "silly" punk band who sang about horror films.

The crew was on the ball and I couldn't ask for a better job. Great first official day.