By Noe Gutierrez
How do The Hellions and Mighty Jack celebrate the 4th of July? They unite and perform two side-splitting sets of rock and roll of course! The inaugural “Hella-Mighty Firework Freak Show’ is set to take place at Schmidy’s Tavern on Saturday July 5th. These two preeminent desert bands have been at it for years and have no intention of stopping to smell the cactus. Their respective line-ups have remained intact and their friendship supersedes any possible band bullshit. After you have devoured your share of hot dogs and watched the conventional firework show, head to Schmidy’s for some TNT! The fuse is lit at 9 p.m. with Mighty Jack.
For the sake of the one CV Weekly reader who is not familiar with The Hellions, their line-up is: Angel “Shakedown” Lua on guitar and vocals, Jamie “Colonel Lingus” Hargate on guitar, Travis “Rawkhard” Rockwell on bass, Christian “Johnny Diablo” Reyes on vocals and Bob “Smack” Llamas on drums. We are all familiar with The Hellions because they are bombastic and fuckin’ hilarious. They have developed traditions while other bands have difficulty establishing a following. “Basically, we want to be remembered as the band that broke down the performer/audience barrier, by inviting the spectator into our spectacle as rawk ’n’ rollers,” Lua gushes.
With a Hellions show comes a helluva party. Lua continues, “It was always about musical performance. We try to engage our fans not only through our musical prowess but also our visual performance, energy, explosiveness, improvisation, and community. Another aspect of our longevity as a band is our respect and admiration for each other as musicians and friends. I guess you can say we are fans of each other.” The Hellions are brothers who happen to be in a rock band. It hasn’t always been easy to maintain but they digress and reestablish themselves.
Lua admits to a Hellions funk at one time. “The Turbojugend/Turbonegro connection kind of kick-started us out of a slump we had several years ago. We came together after listening to Turbonegro’s “Apocalypse Dudes” and got a much needed shot of inspiration and wrote some newer and more provocative shit. We felt the desert was in need of a rock ‘n’ roll band that did not take itself too seriously and appreciated the entertainment and spectacle of musical performances – kind of like an assault on all the senses.”
I recall meeting them as a band for the first time several years ago at the Indio Performing Arts Center while in their dressing room prior to a performance. They shared with me their rituals and how they choose song lists. Hargate pulled out a hat with little pieces of paper that have song titles written on them. They proceeded to share how the song lists are determined just prior to the show. This haphazard approach to rock is what makes The Hellions stand out amongst a slew of desert rock bands; it’s organized chaos. Lua continues, “Another thing was this concept we developed known as the “Hellion Haunt”. In the infancy of our band, the “Hellions’ Haunt” was characterized by a more reckless period and abandon of structure or rules in our performances. We kind of likened it to the time everyone (especially musicians) experiences, where the energy and the fire in our youth consumes everything we do.”
The adventurous nature of The Hellions has kept them youthful despite the tick of time. They will be embarking on new material that will be recorded and released in the near future. Hargate is enthusiastic about the Schmidy’s show. “I’m stoked for the show on Saturday! It’s one of the only shows for the summer as we are focusing on writing and rehearsing for a new record that we will start recording at the end of August.”
I have to say that Mighty Jack is also one of those bands, like The Hellions, who are unparalleled. Made up of four desert rock veterans Marc “Cooska” Gentry on guitar, Charles “The Deliverer” Ellis on guitar and vocals, Aaron C. Ramson “The Hawaiian” on bass and vocals and Jeff “Papa Looch” Bowman on drums, Mighty Jack have lived up to the name by performing their brand of punk/surf/lounge rock with a heavy hitting wall of sound that leaves you (and me) subconsciously reciting their tunes throughout the day unconsciously. Gentry is the purveyor of that wall of sound.
We know Gentry, who has been a mainstay in the desert music scene since the late 80’s. He is once again re-connected with The Pedestrians on a part-time basis. He made sure that it be known that Brandon Ray Henderson remains their main vein on the six string. He is also working on a project entitled “Aphrodisiac Jacket” that salutes and recognizes the music of The Cult. Only Gentry can share his status speaking in the third person using his alias, “Well Cooska always has some irons in the fire. Mighty Jack definitely wants to record again soon. We have some old songs that never made it to our first album plus new material that is begging to be recorded for posterity.”
If you have yet to hear the Mighty Jack recording, Russian Roulette, I highly recommend you purchase it on iTunes. It’s 12 songs and 44 minutes of Mighty Jack in a nutshell. I have 14,000 songs in my iTunes account. In looking at my ‘Top 25 Most Played’ list the song “Don’t Wanna Wait” is on that list. Need I say more?
See you at the Hella-Mighty Firework Freak Show!
