Jesters of Destiny

Diggin' back through my life circa 15 years ago has been an emotionally unnerving experience. The music, the jams, the changing line-ups, the convoluted recording contracts, the hallucinations, the revelations, the girls, the divorce, poverty, doom, despair, joy, the extremely loud amplifiers…But that's my business. I will tell you it all began when my friend Ray Violet invited my roommate (drummer and multi-instrumentalist Doktor Stixx) and me (the bass player) to be the rhythm section on a songwriting demo he was organizing along with his buddy Bill Irwin. Ray offered to "pay" us by allowing us each one song of our choosing produced to our individual satisfaction. I picked a metallic, psychedelic, existentialist war yelp I'd bashed out called "End of Time." During the sessions, which culminated on Halloween, 1984 (talk about Doom!), Ray played me the unforgettable riff to a song about a mosh pit dance in which the participants beheaded each other with shovels -- "Diggin' That Grave." Together, we finished the tune, and when all of the songs were completed, it was clear that "Grave" and "Time" stood alone and apart from the rest. We decided to form a band. The name Jesters of Destiny honestly came to me in a dream, and it perfectly summed up our lyrical combination of existentialism, satire, comedy, resignation - gleeful gloom, if you will. Stixx was set on playing guitar, so beach boy Louie Schilling was our first official drummer. Bill played on much of the album, but after a few live shows, he bailed. My soon-to-be ex-wife recommended giving Eric Carlson a listen. Eric was better known as Sickie Wifebeater, the hood-wearing ax-slinger of the notorious "rape rock" band the Mentors. Eager to "branch out" (the notion in this context seems ridiculous now), Eric played some of the leads which Guitar Player magazine likened to an "epileptic seizure." Check out his work on "God Told Me To" and "Crimson Umbrella"…still stunning today. Fun at the Funeral was recorded in San Fernando, California at Dawnbreaker Studios. In the early '70s, this place was top-flight state-of-the-art, built by Seals and Croft. If had a huge 24-track studio, a rehearsal space big enough to play full-court basketball in, offices, living spaces, a kitchen, and a garden (the digging sounds in "Grave" were actually me digging on a rainy day out the garden, all mic-ed up.) For a short time, Ray and Bill shared an apartment right next door to mine in West Hollywood. (This was Ray's inspiration for "I Hate Bruce." I would want to work on band stuff and he wanted to chill and watch TV, but it was hard to escape his next door neighbor. The apartment was also the setting "in a gay neighborhood" in "Happy Times". "The wise old owl" of "Love Dust" at "the end of my street" was real. At the end of Harper Ave. on Santa Monica Blvd. was the Sorcerer's Shop). He soon moved into a loft above the studio in Dawnbreaker, and our all-night recording sessions became a regular thing. During the day, the remnants of disco/soul band the Sylvers were recording. Lead vocalist Edmond Sylvers (the Michael Jackson of this family group) sang backing vocals for us. He was absolutely amazing, adaptable to anything we tossed at him, always able to nail parts in one take. The album's instrumental interludes were taken from the soundtrack of The Final Hour, which I composed and Ray produced. The film played at Filmex, a sort of indie film predecessor to Sundance. The keyboardist (who also played on "Grave"), was Stu Simone, who most recently was the touring keyboardist for a revived Poison(!) Before Fun was completed, we got "End of Time" on Metal Massacre V, so it seemed logical to take the album to Metal Blade. Employee Ellen Dranch walked us in, and company prez Brian Slagel decided he wanted to try something heavy but different, so we were the first band signed to his new imprint Dimension Records. Creem Metal later described us as "Alternative Metal," and it might have been the first the term was used. I'd hoped that was the concept Slagel had in mind, but given our labelmates Prisoner sounded like Journey, it seemed Dimension was just a dumping ground for the label's non-speed metal entries. Louie left the band for personal reasons (L.A. in the '80s, you figure it out), and eventually we settled on New Jersey transplant Dave Kuzma. He was a great drummer and essentially a "team" type of guy, so after a particularly psychotic episode in which Carlson attempted to play for a large crowd for the first time without his Mentors hood, Kuzma gave us the "him or me." Carlson was out, and Eva O, guitarist with our "sister band" the Super Heroines, recommended Michael Montano, whom I had previously shared a death rock stage with when I was in 45 Grave and he in Rozz Williams' Christian Death. This lineup recorded the second Jesters' Dimension release, the all-covers In A Nostalgic Mood. L.A. Weekly favorably compared it to Bowie's Pinups, which is more than it deserved. CMJ readers voted our version of Sabbath's "Electric Funeral" second best cover of the year, behind something or other by Metallica, and our one-chord demolition of Hendrix's "Foxey Lady" as the second worst. What an honor. Kuzma was the branch that fell from the tree next, but not before recommending fellow New Jersey-ite and Italian madman Danny Blaze as his replacement. Blaze could play anything. He was as into straight-ahead heavy metal as he was jazz fusion, and would pull his false teeth from his mouth and snap them at you in his hand. Montano was the next to go, replaced by teenage hot shot Brian Butler, a youthful con man who had his roommate call me, put on a fake English accent, and tell me he was Brian's manager and that Brian was the shreddin'-est new guitarist in town. He could indeed wail, so we began on Jester opus Number Three, to be entitled No Laughing Matter. We got dropped by the short-sighted Dimension/Metal Blade before the album saw the light, but the bonus tracks on this CD give you an idea of what it was to be. Alternative Metal was just around the corner. Songs 12 through 14 were tracked at soul legend Leon Haywood's studio in South Central Los Angeles (called Sunnyside Studios, ludicrously enough), and overdubbed at Track Record in North Hollywood (with Billy Idol yelping away in the next room). Though never officially prepared for release, I think they show the growth and drive of JOD circa '88. Butler, however, had succumbed to the same distractions as had Louie, and past his biting leads on "Long Long Gone," his contributions failed to materialize. Ray, who worked as an engineer around town, invited Texas-bred R&B session guitarist Bokie to play lead. Bokie, typically under the reigns of tightly controlled sessions, ran with the opportunity, and played some very, eh, over the top parts. I never even met the guy (how L.A.). Blaze was a caretaker at a ranch in Saugus, California with his roommate, bass player Terry Jackson. Originally from St. Louis, Jackson became an honorary Jester, who ran our sound at gigs and would take over on bass while I pretended to be Iggy. He and Blaze set up an 8-track studio at the ranch, and together arranged the re-think of "Grave" that appears here. I came in and played the guitar leads and sang, but they had basically completed it. Brian, Blaze and I recorded other demos of songs from our live set there, (16-17) but Ray felt 8-track wasn't worth the bother and never attended. The title track of our imaginary third masterwork was never recorded, so a few years after the Jesters went down in flames I recorded it myself on a four-track cassette (18). The final explosion (19) shows the kind of heavy metal Ornette Coleman spazz attack the band was capable of live. Recorded at noon on an overcast Saturday at an annual outdoor L.A. festival called the Sunset Junction, a hungover and battered Jesters took the stage. We closed with this Sabbath cover, which we took to heights/depths beyond our recorded version. Without a record deal, and with Brian in and out of the group, the band crumbled under its own dead weight. During our run we played all over the West Coast and in New York. We played with Jane's Addiction, the Dickies, Flaming Lips, and a ton of cool bands, and were written up as the next underground sensation in Spin, Creem, Kerrang, jeez, even Metal Edge. Brian went on to lead the satanic-glam band (before Marilyn Manson thought of it) the Ultras, whom I produced, and now is web subversive. Blaze is back in Jersey and works in the jazz fusion world as both a noted drummer and pianist; his most recent jams are with Geno White, as heard on The Octave Jester (COINCIDENCE?). Montano was last seen playing rockabilly in New Mexico, Eric is still a Mentor, in spirit at least, surviving El Duce. He moved back to Seattle recently. Ray went on to produce loads of stuff, including God Lives Underwater and former-Masters of Reality guitarist Tim Harrington. I played bass on Harrington's Delicious Vinyl-funded recordings, which sadly were never released, although the Tim/Ray/Bruce triumvirate felt a lot like the Jesters at times. I've done time with Jeff Dahl Group, Sister Goddamn, and have played with Adz (Adolescents) for the past five years. Many other stops along the way for everyone, but the trip never really ends, as long as there is music to play. Bruce Duff, Hollywood, CA, 2001 Jesters of Destiny was a heavy metal band from Los Angeles, California, which released the "Fun At The Funeral" (1986) album and "In A Nostalgic Mood" (1987) EP on Dimension Records (a subsidiary of Metal Blade).