Wait Until Dark: My Psychobilly Life pt. 2
By Brent Waroniecki
Aug 6, 2004

I settled in San Francisco just in time for the first Greaseball rockabilly all-dayer. I showed up to the DNA Lounge with a leather jacket festooned with painted band logos and exactly zero friends. But by the end of that beer and sun soaked day, I’d been introduced to most of the small cult of European Psychobilly fans in the Bay at the time. I also discovered just how deep the indifference towards it ran amongst the rockabilly and swing crowd on subsequent visits to rockabilly nights at the DNA. One night I asked the DJ if he had any Sharks or Frenzy (figuring they had enough ‘billy in ‘em that the crowd could still dance). He looked as if I’d requested Slayer. I suggested playing Restless (not Psycho, but way more energetic that the freeze-dried stuff he’d been spinning all night). He scoffed, and threw on Boppin’ Jimmy Rocker and the Grease Cats or whatever. I knew it was a dead issue, and retreated to the shadows of the second story. But every week there seemed to be more and more us upstairs, taking about bands from faraway lands and comparing record collections, while below the perfectly coifed and clothed kats and kittens swung the night away. Something cool was happening; we could all tell … but it was going to take something more than a smattering of shows every few months to keep us all connected. We were spread out all over the Bay: me in the City, members of Tiger Army and the Hellbillys in the East Bay, Hayride to Hell and company in San Jose, and a growing faction in Santa Cruz. On those rare visits by Psychobilly legends like the Meteors or the Guana Batz, almost every single Psychobilly devotee in Northern California, if not the whole state, would be in the same club at the same time. So the problem wasn’t really getting together, it was getting out the word that something wicked was brewing in the Bay. Now we wanted to see if this happening elsewhere… and that’s when the Internet Psychobilly List was born.

The List was actually created by two sisters from Australia, but the Bay Area scene was strongly represented almost instantly. Contacts and connections were made worldwide, and there were posters from Brazil to Scandinavia, with heavy representation from UK and European Psychos that had seen the music fading away in its home. Around the same time, WreckingPit.com was created by a Dutch Psycho named Roy, and was another indispensable resource for info on the international Psychobilly underground. Via the List I met a travelling English Psycho called Astroboy, who graciously offered to put me up if I was planning to attend the Big Rumble that year. The Big Rumble was an annual three-day music festival held near Great Yarmouth, one of those bleak seaside English towns that Morrissey’s always singing about. Now my Psycho obsession had a focus: I had to get to England. Scrimping, saving, and student loans made it financially possible, and the festival happened to fall during Thanksgiving break, so I was set. When I got to Astro’s I found he’d turned into a Psychobilly hostel, with a group of Swedes crashed out on the floor and Roy WreckingPit himself waiting for my arrival. Astro, Roy, and I made the four-hour drive from London to the windswept coast while being entertained by the antics of Italian madwoman Simona, another Psycho List character. As I battled jetlag with can after can of cheap lager, I soaked up as much history, gossip, and tales of Rumbles past as I could. Once we got to the venue and settled into our freezing “caravan” (British for trailer; the venue was a recreation building in the middle of a summer trailer park, abandoned during the off season and thus secluded enough for an invading multinational army of Psychos not to cause too much chaos in the town itself), we reunited with the Swedes, who were found nearly passed out in the venue’s bathroom. There were empty cans and bottles everywhere, improbably angled wedges of multicolored hair attached to stumbling Psychos from all over the world, and band after band of slap bass driven mayhem from the stage. For me it was manna from Heaven, or more likely Hell, and by the end of the third day I had gone completely Psycho: the music was my passion, and I was driven to spread its unholy gospel to whomever I could.

My review of the festival itself can still be found at the Wrecking Pit, but in short, the bands were brilliant, the weather was miserable, and a great time was had by all. Plus I think I’d fallen in love at least three times with some of the Psycho girls in attendence (none of the objects of my affection spoke enough English to make my intentions known, or maybe I was just slurring my words too much…). I wasn’t in a position to start a band, so I decided to help spread the Psychobilly word through my others loves, writing and filmmaking. Upon my return from the UK I became even more active on the List, and was heartened to see people beginning to post from all over the US. A post from the Midwest, one or two from the South, a small but vocal contingent from NYC: everyday it seemed like one or two new sickos were crawling out of the earth and casting aside the staid rockabilly scene in favor of true Psychobilly. The Pacific Northwest also had a growing presence supporting Seattle’s Los Gatos Locos and the Spectres. But the Bay Area still had the numbers and the momentum: new bands were starting up and gigging out, and more people were showing up with flattops and boots instead of pompadours and boppin' shoes. The clubs were slowly starting to warm to the music, but shows were still sparse. The conservative rockabilly crowd had embraced the burgeoning swing scene, playing dress-up in their grandparents’ clothes and gleefully sipping twelve-dollar martinis. The club owners loved that, so anything self-described as Psychobilly usually ended up sharing bills at bar shows with garage bands. That killed the draw for many bands by eliminating many of the underage new Psychos, but the more enterprising youngsters used the List to coordinate with band members to foil that problem.

Things were really coming together by the start of ‘97 into what I guess could be called a scene, and I was more determined than ever to help it grow. We had bands, an increasing number of fans, and a well-coordinated network for welcoming travelling Psychos from around the globe. There was even a fanzine started by the crew down in Santa Cruz, and the Internet presence of Psychobilly flourished as the labels started online catalogues and others started fansites. But just as it seemed like I was in the middle of something about ready to explode, fate and opportunity would send me to Los Angeles for a year, where I was shocked to find little evidence of Psycho life and seemingly little interest in going Psycho at all…