Valentine's Massacre @ The Scene, Glendale, CA

Feb. 12, 2009 - PRLog -- VALENTINE’S MASSACRE
The Scene Bar, Glendale CA

The LA music seen (as in “where can I be seen”) is non-existent in 2009. It’s mostly white collar weekend warriors begging their overweight, married co-workers who never go to clubs otherwise, to check out their bands.

Promoters book purely based on draw, with absolutely no regard to style or talent, and charge a stiff cover at the door. Consequently, no one expects good music at local band venues anymore, so people don’t wander into a club to shell out hard-earned cash to see who happens to be playing on a given night.

Female-fronted punk rockers Bull Lee (www.myspace.com/bulllee) have decided to take matters into their own hands. They believe things can be improved if shows were booked based on like-styles, good quality music, and free admission.

"We are starting to book shows ourselves, with bands we like that play a similar style as us, so people walk into a night of good music that belongs together rather than an eclectic mix of amateurs begging friends for support. If more venues took chances, developed nights over time and didn’t charge outrageous covers, there’d be a snowball effect. Nice boys don’t play rock n’ roll. It shouldn’t be about who has the most friends who can afford to pay a cover. The real thing will get squashed every time."

The first installment of this is happening at The Scene in Glendale, this Sunday night at 9PM and features New Skool Kings (punk rock from the OC, straight off the road with Guttermouth), Bull Lee, Saddle Trash and Our Desperation.

The Bull Lee story began in the early ‘00s with some blurry barroom talk between friends and collaborators John Dissed (guitar) and writer-horror director BC Furtney. As shown by The Ramones (“Texas Chainsaw Massacre”) and The Misfits (“Halloween”), punk rock and horror have always gone well together. The two began writing songs and before they knew it, over 50 were demoed. Beginning as a hoax studio project with sexy Suicide Girl-types posing as band members online, the band was offered a slot at the 2005 Long Beach Car Show. The girls couldn’t play and singer Rachael Slurr lived in NY, so the boys only had a few months to assemble a real band, and for BC to learn an instrument. He chose bass.

The first recruit, and current backbone of the band’s thunderous live sound, was drummer Kevin Pope, whose punk rock credentials include a stint with Boston’s The Snots, later known as The Dropkick Murphys.

After a drunken and debaucherous desert tour with a new lead singer, the band rocked the car show that summer, and was asked back the following year. Mission accomplished. The only thing missing was the right girl out front…

Enter Trisha Hanudel. Shortly after arriving in Los Angeles in ‘05, following her NYC gallery success as a painter, she was lighting-up stages (sometimes literally) as a member of the sexy-twisted performance art troupe, DMT. Fire-spinning, belly-dancing, anything physical became fair game. Fashion design also crept in, and Trisha launched her own line of clothing, Redrawn Arts (www.redrawnarts.com). Her re-birth as rock n’ roll frontwoman came during a trip to a beachside karaoke bar, where she caught the eyes of BC, Kevin and John.

For the next three years, the quartet destroyed venues throughout the Southwest and released a 2nd album (Bull Lee) in ’07 on their own Bull Lee Records label.

In the meantime, two of Furtney’s shorts were discovered and distributed by Fangoria on their Blood Drive DVD series. He decided to switch his focus back to film and moved to Pittsburgh, PA (where such horror classics as Night of the Living Dead and Martin were born). The move proved successful and in less than 6 months he had written and shot the feature-length psycho-thriller New Terminal Hotel, starring heralded scream queen Tiffany Shepis, Fright Night’s Stephen Geoffreys, Ezra (Hills Have Eyes) Buzzington and Corey (Lost Boys) Haim.

With BC gone, the band wasted no time, settling on Mo Berg for the open bass slot. The band’s only LA native, a young Mo was a staple in the classic LA punk scene, and is featured in the film Rock n’ Roll High School as an extra during the band’s historical Whiskey A-Go-Go performance. A singer-songwriter in his own right, Berg contributes songs and occasional lead vocals.

The Scene is one of Bull Lee’s favorite venues and Sunday night promises to be a fun-filled rock n’ roll adventure as they join three of their favorite local bands on the best sounding dive bar stage in LA for an evening of ear-blistering punk rock n’ roll.

Flyer by Mike Dyson @ Guerrilla808 Studios (guerrilla808@gmail.com)